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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 



HENRY DiUMMOND, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 



NEW YORK 
JAMES POTT & COMPANY 

1 19-12 I WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
1904 



Copyright, 1891, 
By HENRY DRUMMOND, 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

9 



Introduction, 

The Founding of the Society, . .18 

The Programme of the Society, . . 24 

The Machinery of the Society, . . 52 



THE 

PROGRAMME OF CHRISTIANITY 

To Preach Good Tidings unto the Meek : 

To Bind up the Broken-Hearted : 

To Proclaim Liberty to the Captives and the Opening of the 

Prison to them that are Bound : 
To Proclaim the Acceptable Year of the Lord, and the Day 

of Vengeance of our God : 
To Comfort all that Mourn : 
To Appoint unto them that Mourn in Zion . 
To Give unto them — 

Beauty for Ashes, 

The Oil of Joy for Mourning, 

The Garment of Praise for the Spirit of Heaviness. 




THE PROGRAMME OF 
CHRISTIANITY 



" WHAT does God do all day ? " once asked a 
little boy. One could wish that more grown- 
up people would ask so very real a question. 
Unfortunately, most of us are not even boys 
in religious intelligence, but only very un- 
thinking children. It no more occurs to us 
that God is engaged in any particular work in 
the world than it occurs to a little child that 
its father does anything except be its father. 
Its father may be a Cabinet Minister absorbed 
in the nation's work, or an inventor deep in 
schemes for the world's good ; but to this 



IO THE PROGRAMME 

master-egoist he is father, and nothing more. 
Childhood, whether in the physical or moral 
world, is the great self-centred period of life ; 
and a personal God who satisfies personal ends 
is all that for a long time many a Christian 
understands. 

But as clearly as there comes to the grow- 
ing child a knowledge of its fathers part in the 
world, and a sense of what real life means, 
there must come to every Christian whose 
growth is true some richer sense of the mean- 
ing of Christianity and a larger view of 
Christ's purpose for mankind. To miss this 
is to miss the whole splendour and glory of 
Christ's religion. Next to losing the sense of 
a personal Christ, the worst evil that can be- 
fall a Christian is to have no sense of anything 
else. To grow up in complacent belief that 
God has no business in this great groaning 



OF CHRISTIANITY. II 

world of human beings except to attend to a 
few saved souls is the negation of all religion. 
The first great epoch in a Christian's life, after 
the awe and wonder of its dawn, is when there 
breaks into his mind some sense that Christ 
has a purpose for mankind, a purpose beyond 
him and his needs, beyond the churches and 
their creeds, beyond Heaven and its saints — - 
a purpose which embraces every man and 
woman born, every kindred and nation 
formed, which regards not their spiritual good 
alone, but their welfare in every part, their 
progress, their health, their work, their wages, 
their happiness in this present world. 

What, then, does Christ do all day? By 
.what further conception shall we augment the 
selfish view of why Christ lived and died ? 

I shall mislead no one, I hope, if I say — for 
I wish to put the social side of Christianity in 



12 THE PROGRAMME 

its strongest light — that Christ did not come 
into the world to give men religion. He 
never mentioned the word religion. Religion 
was in the world before Christ came, and it 
lives to-day in a million souls who have never 
heard His name. What God does all day is 
not to sit waiting in churches for people to 
come and worship Him. It is true that God 
is in churches and in all kinds of churches, 
and is found by many in churches more im- 
mediately than anywhere else. It is also true 
that, while Christ did not give men religion, 
He gave a new direction to the religious aspi- 
ration bursting forth then and now and always 
from the whole world's heart. But it was His 
purpose to enlist these aspirations on behalf 
of some definite practical good. The religious 
people of those days did nothing with their re- 
ligion except attend to its observances. Even 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 

the priest, after he had been to the temple, 
thought his work was done ; when he met the 
wounded man he passed by on the other side. 
Christ reversed all this — tried to reverse it, for 
He is only now beginning to succeed. The 
tendency of the religions of all time has been 
to care more for religion than for humanity ; 
Christ cared more for humanity than for re- 
ligion — rather, His care for humanity was the 
chief expression of His religion. He was not 
indifferent to observances, but the practices of 
the people bulked in His thoughts before the 
practices of the Church. It has been pointed 
out as a blemish on the immortal allegory of 
Bunyan that the Pilgrim never did anything — 
anything but save his soul. The remark is 
scarcely fair, for the allegory is designedly the 
story of a soul in a single relation ; and, be- 
sides, he did do a little. But the warning may 



14 THE PROGRAMME 

well be weighed. The Pilgrim's one thought, 
his work by clay, his dream by night, was 
escape. He took little part in the world 
through w r hich he passed. He was a Pilgrim 
travelling through it ; his business was to get 
through safe. Whatever this is, it is not 
Christianity. Christ's conception of Chris- 
tianity w T as heavens removed from that of a 
man setting out from the City of Destruction 
to save his soul. It was rather that of a man 
dwelling amidst the Destructions of the City 
and planning escapes for the souls of others — 
escapes not to the other world, but to purity 
and peace and righteousness in this. In real- 
ity Christ never said " Save your soul." It is 
a mistranslation which says that. What He 
said was, " Save your life." And this not be- 
cause the first is nothing, but only because it 
is so very great a thing that only the second 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 1$ 

can accomplish it. But the new word altruism 
— the translation of " love thy neighbour as 
thyself " — is slowly finding its way into cur- 
rent Christian speech. The People's Progress, 
not less than the Pilgrim's Progress, is daily 
becoming a graver concern to the Church. A 
popular theology with unselfishness as part at 
least of its root, a theology which appeals no 
longer to fear, but to the generous heart in 
man, has already dawned, and more clearly 
than ever men are beginning to see what 
Christ really came into this world to do. 

What Christ came here for was to make a 
better world. The world in which we live is 
an unfinished world. It is not wise, it is not 
happy, it is not pure, it is not good — it is not 
even sanitary. Humanity is little more than 
raw material. Almost everything has yet to 
be done to it. Before the days of Geology 



l6 THE PROGRAMME 



people thought the earth was finished. It is 
by no means finished. The work of Creation 
is going on. Before the spectroscope, men 
thought the universe was finished. We know 
now it is just beginning. And this teeming 
universe of men in which we live has almost 
all its finer colour and beauty yet to take. 
Christ came to complete it. The fires of its 
passions were not yet cool ; their heat had 
to be transformed into finer energies. The 
ideals for its future were all to shape, the 
forces to realize them were not yet born. The 
poison of its sins had met no antidote, the 
gloom of its doubt no light, the weight of its 
sorrow no rest. These the Saviour of the 
world, the Light of men, would do and be. 
This, roughly, was His scheme. 

Now this was a prodigious task — to re- 
create the world. How was it to be done? 



OF CHRISTIANITY. \J 

God's way of making worlds is to make them 
make themselves. When He made the earth 
He made a rough ball of matter and supplied 
it with a multitude of tools to mould it into 
form — the rain-drop to carve it, the glacier to 
smooth it, the river to nourish it, the flower 
to adorn it. God works always with agents, 
and this is our way when we want any great 
thing done, and this was Christ's way when He 
undertook the finishing of Humanity. He 
had a vast, intractable mass of matter to deal 
with, and He required a multitude of tools. 
Christ's tools were men. Hence His first 
business in the world was to make a collection 
of men. In other words, He founded a 
Society. 




THE FOUNDING OF THE SOCIETY 

It is a somewhat startling thought — it will 
not be misunderstood — that Christ probably 
did not save many people while He was here. 
Many an evangelist, in that direction, has 
done much more. He never intended to fin- 
ish the world single-handed, but announced 
from the first that others would not only take 
part, but do " greater things " than He. For, 
amazing as was the attention He was able to 
give to individuals, this was not the whole 
aim He had in view. His immediate work 
was to enlist men in His enterprise, to rally 
them into a great company or Society for the 

carrying out of His plans. 

18 



THE PROGRAMME OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 

The name by which this Society was 
known was The Kingdom of God. Christ did 
not coin this name; it was an old expression, 
and good men had always hoped and prayed 
that some such Society would be born in their 
midst. But it was never either defined or set 
agoing in earnest until Christ made its realiza- 
tion the passion of His life. 

How keenly He felt regarding His task, 
how enthusiastically He set about it, every 
page of His life bears witness. All reformers 
have one or two great words which they use 
incessantly, and by mere reiteration imbed 
indelibly in the thought and history of their 
time. Christ's great word was the Kingdom 
of God. Of all the words of His that have 
come down to us this is by far the common- 
est. One hundred times it occurs in the Gos- 
pels. When He preached He had almost al- 



20 THE PROGRAMME 

ways this for a text. His sermons were expla- 
nations of the aims of His Society, of the 
different things it was like, of whom its mem- 
bership consisted, what they were to do or to 
be, or not do or not be. And, even when He 
does not actually use the word, it is easy to 
see that all He said and did had reference to 
this. Philosophers talk about thinking in cat- 
egories — the mind living, as it were, in a par- 
ticular room with its own special furniture, 
pictures, and view-points, these giving a con- 
sistent direction and colour to all that is there 
thought or expressed. It was in the category 
of the Kingdom that Christ's thought moved. 
Though one time He said He came to save 
the lost, or at another time to give men life, 
or to do His Father's will, these were all in- 
cluded among the objects of His Society. 

No one can ever know what Christianity is 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 

till he has grasped this leading thought in the 
mind of Christ. Peter and Paul have many 
wonderful and necessary things to tell us 
about what Christ was and did ; but we are 
looking now at what Christ's own thought 
was. Do not think this is a mere modern 
theory. These are His own life-plans taken 
from His own lips. Do not allow any isolated 
text, even though it seem to sum up for you 
the Christian life, to keep you from trying to 
understand Christ's Programme as a whole. 
The perspective of Christ's teaching is not 
everything, but without it everything will be 
distorted and untrue. There is much good in 
a verse, but often much evil. To see some 
small soul pirouetting throughout life on a 
single text, and judging all the world because 
it cannot find a partner, is not a Christian 
sight. Christianity does not grudge such 



22 THE PROGRAMME 

souls their comfort. What it grudges is that 
they make Christ's Kingdom uninhabitable to 
thoughtful minds. Be sure that whenever the 
religion of Christ appears small, or forbidding, 
or narrow, or inhuman, you are dealing not 
with the whole — which is a matchless moral 
symmetry — nor even with an arch or column 
— for every detail is perfect — but with some 
cold stone removed from its place and sug- 
gesting nothing of the glorious structure from 
which it came. 

Tens of thousands of persons who are fa- 
miliar with religious truths have not noticed 
yet that Christ ever founded a Society at all. 
The reason is partly that people have read 
texts instead of reading their Bible, partly 
that they have studied Theology instead of 
studying Christianity, and partly because of 
the noiselessness and invisibility of the King- 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 23 

dom of God itself. Nothing truer was ever 
said of this Kingdom than that " It cometh 
without observation." Its first discovery, 
therefore, comes to the Christian with all the 
force of a revelation. The sense of belonging 
to such a Society transforms life. It is the 
difference between being a solitary knight tilt- 
ing single-handed, and often defeated, at what- 
ever enemy one chances to meet on one's lit- 
tle acre of life, and the feel of belonging to 
a mighty army marching throughout all time 
to a certain victory. This note of universality 
given to even the humblest work we do, this 
sense of comradeship, this link with history, 
this thought of a definite campaign, this 
promise of success, is the possession of every 
obscurest unit in the Kingdom of God. 




THE PROGRAMME OF THE SOCIETY 

HUNDREDS of years before Christ's Society 
was formed, its Programme had been issued 
to the world. I cannot think of any scene 
in history more dramatic than when Jesus en- 
tered the church in Nazareth and read it to 
the people. Not that when He appropriated 
to Himself that venerable fragment from 
Isaiah He was uttering a manifesto or an- 
nouncing His formal Programme. Christ 
never did things formally. We think of the 
words, as He probably thought of them, not 

in their old-world historical significance, nor 
24 



THE PROGRAMME OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 

as a full expression of His future aims, but 
as a summary of great moral facts now and 
always to be realized in the world since He 
appeared. 

Remember as you read the words to what 
grim reality they refer. Recall what Christ's 
problem really was, what His Society was 
founded for. This Programme deals with a 
real world. Think- of it as you read — not of 
the surface-world, but of the world as it 
is, as it sins and weeps, and curses and 
suffers, and sends up its long cry to God. 
Limit it if you like to the world around 
your door, but think of it — of the city and 
the hospital and the dungeon and the grave- 
yard, of the sweating-shop and the pawn- 
shop and the drink-shop ; think of the cold, 
the cruelty, the fever, the famine, the ugli- 
ness, the loneliness, the pain. And then try 



26 THE PROGRAMME 

to keep down the lump in your throat as you 
take up His Programme and read — 

" To Bind up the Broken-Hearted : 
To Proclaim Liberty to the Captives: 
To Comfort all that Mourn ; 
To Give unto them — 
Beauty for Ashes, 
The Oil of Joy for Mourning, 
The Garment of Praise for the Spirit 
of Heaviness." 

What an exchange — Beauty for Ashes, 
Joy for Mourning, Liberty for Chains ! No 
marvel " the eyes of all them that were in 
the synagogue were fastened on Him " as 
He read ; or that they " wondered at the 
gracious words which proceeded out of His 
lips." Only one man in that congregation, 
only one man in the world to-day could 
hear these accents with dismay — the man, 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 2J 

the culprit, who has said hard words of 
Christ. 

We are all familiar with the protest, " Of 
course " — as if there were no other alternative 
to a person of culture — " Of course I am not 
a Christian, but I always speak respectfully 
of Christianity." Respectfully of Christian- 
ity ! No remark fills one's soul with such 
sadness. One can understand a man as he 
reads these words being stricken speechless ; 
one can see the soul within him rise to a white 
heat as each fresh benediction falls upon his 
ear and drives him, a half-mad enthusiast, to 
bear them to the world. But in what school 
has he learned of Christ who offers the 
Saviour of the world his respect ? 

Men repudiate Christ's religion because 
they think it a small and limited thing, a 
scheme with no large human interests to com- 



28 THE PROGRAMME 

mend it to this great social age. I ask you to 
note that there is not one burning interest of 
the human race which is not represented here. 
What are the great words of Christianity 
according to this Programme ? Take as spec- 
imens these : 

LIBERTY, 

COMFORT, 

BEAUTY 

JOY. 

These are among the greatest words of life. 
Give them their due extension, the signifi- 
cance which Christ undoubtedly saw in them 
and which Christianity undoubtedly yields, 
and there is almost no great want or interest 
of mankind which they do not cover. 

These are not only the greatest words of 
life but they are the best. This Programme, 
to those who have misread Christianity, is a 
series of surprises. Observe the most promi- 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 

nent note in it. It is gladness. Its first word 
is " good-tidings," its last is "joy." The sad- 
dest words of life are also there — but there as 
the diseases which Christianity comes to cure. 
No life that is occupied with such an enter- 
prise could be other than radiant. The con- 
tribution of Christianity to the joy of living, 
perhaps even more to the joy of thinking, 
is unspeakable. The joyful life is the life 
of the larger mission, the disinterested life, 
the life of the overflow from self, the " more 
abundant life " which comes from following 
Christ. And the joy of thinking is the larger 
thinking, the thinking of the man who 
holds in his hand some Programme for 
Humanity. The Christian is the only man 
who has any Programme at all — any Pro- 
gramme either for the world or for himself. 
Goethe, Byron, Carlyle taught Humanity 



THE PROGRAMME 



much, but they had no Programme for it. 
Byron's thinking was suffering, Carlyle's de, 
spair. Christianity alone exults. The belief 
in the universe as moral, the interpretation 
of history as progress, the faith in good as 
eternal, in evil as self-consuming, in humanity 
as evolving — these Christian ideas have trans- 
formed the malady of thought into a bound- 
ing hope. It was no sentiment but a con- 
viction, matured amid calamity and submitted 
to the tests of life, that inspired the great 
modern poet of optimism to proclaim : 

"Gladness be with thee, Helper of the world ! 
I think this is the authentic sign and seal 
Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad 
And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts 
Into a rage to suffer for mankind 
And recommence at sorrow." 

But that is not all. Man's greatest needs 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 3 1 

are often very homely. And it is almost as 
much in its fearless recognition of the com- 
monplace woes of life, and its deliberate offer- 
ings to minor needs, that the claims of Chris- 
tianity to be a religion for Humanity stand. 
Look, for instance, at the closing sentence of 
this Programme. Who would have expected 
to find among the special objects of Christ's 
solicitude the Spirit of Heaviness ? Supreme 
needs, many and varied, had been already 
dealt with on this Programme ; many appli- 
cants had been met ; the list is about to close. 
Suddenly the writer remembers the nameless 
malady of the poor — that mysterious disease 
which the rich share but cannot alleviate, 
which is too subtle for doctors, too incurable 
for Parliaments, too unpicturesque for philan. 
thropy, too common even for sympathy. Can 
Christ meet that ? 



32 The programme 

If Christianity could even deal with the 
world's Depression, could cure mere dull 
spirits, it would be the Physician of Hu- 
manity. But it can. It has the secret, a 
hundred secrets, for the lifting of the world's 
gloom. It cannot immediately remove the 
physiological causes of dulness — though obedi- 
ence to its principles can do an infinity to pre- 
vent them, and its inspirations can do even 
more to lift the mind above them. But where 
the causes are moral or mental or social the 
remedy is in every Christian's hand. Think 
of any one at this moment whom the Spirit of 
Heaviness haunts. You think of a certain old 
woman. But you know for a fact that you 
can cure her. You did so, perfectly, only a 
week ago. A mere visit, and a little present, 
or the visit without any present, set her up 
for seven long days and seven long nights. 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 

The machinery of the Kingdom is very simple 
i.nd very silent, and the most silent parts do 
most, and we all believe so little in the medi- 
tines of Christ that we do not know what 
ripples of healing are set in motion when we 
simply smile on one another. Christianity 
wants nothing so much in the world as sunny 
people, and the old are hungrier for love than 
for bread, and the Oil of Joy is very cheap, 
and if you can help the poor on with a Gar- 
ment of Praise it will be better for them than 
blankets. 

Or perhaps you know some one else who is 
dull — not an old woman this time, but a very 
rich and important man. But you also know 
perfectly what makes him dull. It is either 
his riches or his importance. Christianity can 
cure either of these — though you may not be 

the person to apply the cure — at a single hear- 
3 



34 THE PROGRAMME 

ing. Or here is a third case, one of your own 
servants. It is a case of monotony. Prescribe 
more variety, leisure, recreation — anything to 
relieve the wearing strain. A fourth case — 
your most honoured guest : Condition — leis- 
ure, health, accomplishments, means ; Disease 
— Spiritual Obesity ; Treatment — talent to be 
put out to usury. And so on down the whole 
range of life's dejection and ennui. 

Perhaps you tell me this is not Christianity 
at all ; that everybody could do that. The cu- 
rious thing is that everybody does not. Good- 
will to men came into the world with Christ, 
and wherever that is found, in Christian or 
heathen land, there Christ is, and there His 
Spirit works. And if you say that the chief 
end of Christianity is not the world's happi- 
ness, I agree ; it was never meant to be ; but 
the strange fact is that, without making it its 



OF CHRISTIANITY. • 35 

chief end, it wholly and infallibly, and quite 
universally, leads to it. Hence the note of 
Joy, though not the highest on Christ's Pro- 
gramme, is a loud and ringing note, and none 
who serve in His Society can be long without 
its music. Time was when a Christian used to 
apologize for being happy. But the day has 
always been when he ought to apologize for 
being miserable. 

Christianity, you will observe, really works. 
And it succeeds not only because it is divine, 
but because it is so very human — because it is 
common-sense. Why should the Garment of 
Praise destroy the Spirit of Heaviness? Be- 
cause an old woman cannot sing and cry at 
the same moment. The Society of Christ is a 
sane Society. Its methods are rational. The 
principle in the old woman's case is simply 
that one emotion destroys another. Christian- 



36 THE PROGRAMME 

ity works, as a railway man would say, with 
points. It switches souls from valley lines to 
mountain lines, not stemming the currents of 
life but diverting them. In the rich man's 
case the principle of cure is different, but it is 
again principle, not necromancy. His spirit of 
heaviness is caused, like any other heaviness, 
by the earth's attraction. Take away the 
earth and you take away the attraction. But 
if Christianity can do anything it can take 
away the earth. By the wider extension of 
horizon which it gives, by the new standard 
of values, by the mere setting of life's small 
pomps and interests and admirations in the 
light of the Eternal, it dissipates the world 
with a breath. All that tends to abolish 
worldliness tends to abolish unrest, and hence, 
in the rush of modern life, one far-reaching 
good of all even commonplace Christian 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 

preaching, all Christian literature, all which 
holds the world doggedly to the idea of a God 
and a future life, and reminds mankind of In- 
finity and Eternity. 

Side by side with these influences, yet tak- 
ing the world at a wholly different angle, 
works another great Christian force. How 
many opponents of religion are aware that 
one of the specific objects of Christ's Society 
is Beauty? The charge of vulgarity against 
Christianity is an old one. If it means that 
Christianity deals with the ruder elements in 
human nature, it is true, and that is its glory. 
But if it means that it has no respect for the 
finer qualities, the charge is baseless. For 
Christianity not only encourages whatsoever 
things are lovely, but wars against that whole 
theory of life which would exclude them. It 
prescribes aestheticism ; it proscribes asceti- 



38 THE PROGRAMME 

cism. And for those who preach to Christians 
that in these enlightened days they must raise 
the masses by giving them noble sculptures 
and beautiful paintings and music and public 
parks, the answer is that these things are all 
already being given, and given daily, and with 
an increasing sense of their importance, by the 
Society of Christ. Take away from the world 
the beautiful things which have not come from 
Christ and you will make it poorer scarcely at 
all. Take away from modern cities the paint- 
ings, the monuments, the music for the peo- 
ple, the museums and the parks which are 
not the gifts of Christian men and Christian 
municipalities, and in ninety cases out of a 
hundred you will leave them unbereft of so 
much as a well-shaped lamp-post. 

It is impossible to doubt that the Decora- 
tor of the World shall not continue to serve 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 

to His later children, and in ever finer forms, 
the inspirations of beautiful things. More 
fearlessly than he has ever done, the Christian 
of modern life will use the noble spiritual 
leverages of Art. That this world, the peo- 
ple's world, is a bleak and ugly world, we do 
not forget ; it is ever with us. But we esteem 
too little the mission of Beautiful Things in 
haunting the mind with higher thoughts and 
begetting the mood which leads to God. 
Physical beauty makes moral beauty. Love- 
liness does more than destroy ugliness ; it 
destroys matter. A mere touch of it in a 
room, in a street, even on a door-knocker, is a 
spiritual force. Ask the workingman's wife, 
and she will tell you there is a moral effect 
even in a clean table-cloth. If a barrel-organ 
in a slum can but drown a curse, let no Chris- 
tian silence it. The mere light and colour of 



40 THE PROGRAMME 

the wall-advertisements are a gift of God to 
the poor man's sombre world. 

One Christmas-time a poor drunkard told 
me that he had gone out the night before to 
take his usual chance of the temptations of 
the street. Close to his door, at a shop win- 
dow, an angel — so he said — arrested him. It 
was a large Christmas card, a glorious white 
thing with tinsel wings, and as it glittered in 
the gaslight it flashed into his soul a sudden 
thought of Heaven. It recalled the earlier 
heaven of his infancy, and he thought of his 
mother in the distant glen, and how it would 
please her if she got this Christmas angel from 
her prodigal. With money already pledged to 
the devil he bought the angel, and with it a 
new soul and future for himself. That was a 
real angel. For that day, as I saw its tinsel 
pinions shine in his squalid room, I knew what 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 

Christ's angels were. They are all beautiful 
things, which daily in common homes are 
bearing up heavy souls to God. 

But do not misunderstand me. This angel 
was made of pasteboard : a pasteboard angel 
can never save a soul. Tinsel reflects the sun, 
but warms nothing. Our Programme must go 
deeper. Beauty may arrest the drunkard, but 
it cannot cure him. 

It is here that Christianity asserts itself 
with a supreme individuality. It is here that 
it parts company with Civilization, with Pol- 
itics, with all secular schemes of Social Re- 
form. In its diagnosis of human nature it 
finds that which most other systems ignore ; 
which, if they see, they cannot cure ; which, 
left undestroyed, makes every reform futile, 
and every inspiration vain. That thing is Sin. 
Christianity, of all other philanthropies, recog- 



42 THE PROGRAMME 

nizes that man's devouring need is Liberty — 
liberty to stop sinning ; to leave the prison of 
his passions, and shake off the fetters of his 
past. To surround Captives with statues and 
pictures, to offer Them-that-are-Bound a higher 
wage or a cleaner street or a few more cubic 
feet of air per head, is solemn trifling. It is a 
cleaner soul they want ; a purer air, or any air 
at all, for their higher selves. 

And where the cleaner soul is to come 
from apart from Christ I cannot tell. " By no 
political alchemy," Herbert Spencer tells us, 
" can you get golden conduct out of leaden in- 
stincts." The power to set the heart right, to 
renew the springs of action, comes from 
Christ. The sense of the infinite worth of the 
single soul, and the recoverableness of man at 
his worst, are the gifts of Christ. The free- 
dom from guilt, the forgiveness of sins, come 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 

from Christ's Cross; the hope of immortality 
springs from Christ's grave. We believe in 
the gospel of better laws and an improved 
environment ; we hold the religion of Christ 
to be a social religion; we magnify and call 
Christian the work of reformers, statesmen, 
philanthropists, educators, inventors, sanitary 
officers, and all who directly or remotely aid, 
abet, or further the higher progress of man- 
kind ; but in Him alone, in the fulness of that 
word, do we see the Saviour of the world. 

There are earnest and gifted lives to-day at 
work among the poor whose lips at least will 
not name the name of Christ. I speak of 
them with respect ; their shoe-latchets many 
of us are not worthy to unloose. But because 
the creed of the neighbouring mission-hall is 
a travesty of religion they refuse to acknowl 
edge the power of the living Christ to stop 



44 THE PROGRAMME 

man's sin, of the dying Christ to forgive it. 
Oh, narrowness of breadth ! Because there are 
ignorant doctors do I yet rail at medicine or 
start an hospital of my own ? Because the 
poor raw evangelist, or the narrow ecclesiastic, 
offer their little all to the poor, shall I repu- 
diate all they do not know of Christ because 
of the little that they do know ? Of gospels 
for the poor which have not some theory, 
state it how you will, of personal conversion 
one cannot have much hope. Personal con- 
version means for life a personal religion, a 
personal trust in God, a personal debt to 
Christ, a personal dedication to His cause. 
These, brought about how you will, are 
supreme things to aim at, supreme losses if 
they are missed. Sanctification will come to 
masses only as it comes to individual men ; 
and to work with Christ's Programme and 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 4§ 

ignore Christ is to utilize the sun's light 
without its energy. 

But this is not the only point at which 
the uniqueness of this Society appears. There 
is yet another depth in humanity which no 
other system even attempts to sound. We 
live in a world not only of sin but of 
sorrow — 

" There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there ; 
There is no home, howe'er defended, 
But has one vacant chair." 

When the flock thins, and the chair emp- 
ties, who is to be near to heal ? At that 
moment the gospels of the world are on 
trial. In the presence of Death how will 
they act? Act! They are blotted out of 
existence. Philosophy, Politics, Reforms are 
no more. The Picture Galleries close. The 



46 THE PROGRAMME 

Sculptures hide. The Committees disperse. 
There is crape on the door ; the world with- 
draws. Observe, it withdraws. It has no 
mission. 

So awful in its loneliness was this hour 
that the Romans paid a professional class to 
step in with its mummeries and try to fill 
it. But that is Christ's own hour. Next 
to Righteousness the greatest word of Chris- 
tianity is Comfort. Christianity has almost a 
monopoly of Comfort. Renan was never 
nearer the mark than when he spoke of the 
Bible as " the great Book of the Consolation 
of Humanity." Christ's Programme is full 
of Comfort, studded with Comfort : " to Bind 
up the Broken-Hearted, to Comfort all that 
Mourn, to Give unto them that Mourn in 
Zion." Even the " good tidings to the 
meek" are, in the Hebrew, a message to 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 

^' • » 

the "afflicted " or " the poor." The word 
Gospel itself comes down through the Greek 
from this very passage, so that whatever else 
Christ's Gospel means it is first an Evangel 
for suffering men. 

One note in this Programme jars with all 
the rest. When Christ read from Isaiah that 
day He never finished the passage. A ter- 
rible word, Vengeance, yawned like a preci- 
pice across His path ; and in the middle of 
a sentence " He closed the Book, and gave 
it again to the minister, and sat down." A 
Day of Vengeance from our God — these were 
the words before which Christ paused. When 
the prophet proclaimed it some great his- 
torical fulfilment was in his mind. Had 
the people to whom Christ read been able to 
understand its ethical equivalents He would 
probably have read on. For, so understood, 



48 THE PROGRAMME 

instead of filling the mind with fear, the 
thought of this dread Day inspires it with a 
solemn gratitude. The work of the Avenger is 
a necessity. It is part of God's philanthropy. 

For I have but touched the surface in 
speaking of the sorrow of the world as if it 
came from people dying. It comes from peo- 
ple living. Before ever the Broken-Hearted 
can be healed a hundred greater causes of suf- 
fering than death must be destroyed. Before 
the Captive can be free a vaster prison than 
his own sins must be demolished. There are 
hells on earth into which no breath of Heaven 
can ever come ; these must be swept away. 
There are social soils in which only unright- 
eousness can flourish ; these must be broken 
up. 

And that is the work of the Day of Ven- 
geance. When is that day ? It is now. Who 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 

is the Avenger? Law. What Law? Crimi- 
nal Law, Sanitary Law, Social Law, Natural 
Law. Wherever the poor are trodden upon 
or tread upon one another; wherever the air 
is poison and the water foul ; wherever want 
stares, and vice reigns, and rags rot — there the 
Avenger takes his stand. Whatever makes it 
more difficult for the drunkard to reform, for 
the children to be pure, for the widow to earn 
a wage, for any of the wheels of progress to 
revolve — with these he deals. Delay him not. 
He is the messenger of Christ. Despair of 
him not, distrust him not. His Day dawns 
slowly, but his work is sure. Though evil 
stalks the world, it is on the way to execu- 
tion ; though wrong reigns, it must end in 
self-combustion. The very nature of things 
is God's Avenger ; the very story of civiliza- 
tion is the history of Christ's Throne. 
4 



50 THE PROGRAMME 

Anything that prepares the way for a bet- 
ter social state is the fit work of the followers 
of Christ. Those who work on the more spir- 
itual levels leave too much unhonoured the 
slow toil of multitudes of unchurched souls 
who prepare the material or moral environ- 
ments without which these higher labours are 
in vain. Prevention is Christian as well as 
cure ; and Christianity travels sometimes by 
the most circuitous paths. It is given to 
some to work for immediate results, and from 
year to year they are privileged to reckon up a 
balance of success. But these are not always 
the greatest in the Kingdom of God. The 
men who get no stimulus from any visible re- 
ward, whose lives pass while the objects for 
which they toil are still too far away to com- 
fort them ; the men who hold aloof from daz- 
zling schemes and earn the misunderstanding 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 



51 



of the crowd because they foresee remoter 
issues, who even oppose a seeming good be- 
cause a deeper evil lurks beyond — these are 
the statesmen of the Kingdom of God. 




THE MACHINERY OF THE SOCIETY 



SUCH in dimmest outline is the Programme 
of Christ's Society. Did you know that all 
this was going on in the world ? Did you 
know that Christianity was such a living and 
purpose-like thing? Look back to the day 
when that Programme was given, and you 
will see that it was not merely written on 
paper. Watch the drama of the moral order 
rise up, scene after scene, in history. Study 
the social evolution of humanity, the spread 
of righteousness, the amelioration of life, the 
freeing of slaves, the elevation of woman, the 
purification of religion, and ask what these 

52 



THE PROGRAMME OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 

can be if not the coming of the Kingdom of 
God on earth. For it is precisely through 
the movements of nations and the lives of 
men that this Kingdom comes. Christ might 
have done all this work Himself, with His 
own hands. But He did not. The crowning 
wonder of His scheme is that He entrusted it 
to men. It is the supreme glory of humanity 
that the machinery for its redemption should 
have been placed within itself. I think the 
saddest thing in Christ's life was that after 
founding a Society with aims so glorious He 
had to go away and leave it. 

But in reality He did not leave it. The 
old theory that God made the world, made it 
as an inventor would make a machine, and 
then stood looking on to see it work, has 
passed away. God is no longer a remote 
spectator of the natural world, but immanent 



54 THE PROGRAMME 

in it, pervading matter by His present Spirit, 
and ordering it by His Will. So Christ is 
immanent in men. His work is to move the 
hearts and inspire the lives of men, and 
through such hearts to move and reach the 
world. Men, only men, can carry out this 
work. This humanness, this inwardness, of 
the Kingdom is one reason why some scarcely 
see that it exists at all. We measure great 
movements by the loudness of their advertise- 
ment, or the place their externals fill in the 
public eye. This Kingdom has no externals. 
The usual methods of propagating a great 
cause were entirely discarded by Christ. The 
sword He declined ; money He had none ; 
literature He never used ; the Church dis- 
owned Him ; the State crucified Him. Plant- 
ing His ideals in the hearts of a few poor men, 
He started them out unheralded to revolu- 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 

tionize the world. They did it by making 
friends — and by making enemies ; they went 
about, did good, sowed seed, died, and lived 
again in the lives of those they helped. 
These in turn, a fraction of them, did the 
same. They met, they prayed, they talked 
of Christ, they loved, they went among other 
men, and by act and word passed on their 
secret. The machinery of the Kingdom of 
God is purely social. It acts, not by com- 
mandment, but by contagion ; not by fiat, but 
by friendship. " The Kingdom of God is like 
unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in 
three measures of meal till the whole was 
leavened. " 

After all, like all great discoveries once 
they are made, this seems absolutely the most 
feasible method that could have been devised. 
Men must live among men. Men must influ- 



56 THE PROGRAMME 

ence men. Organizations, institutions, churches, 
have too much rigidity for a thing that is to 
flood the world. The only fluid in the world 
is man. War might have won for Christ's 
cause a passing victory ; wealth might have 
purchased a superficial triumph; political 
power might have gained a temporary success. 
But in these there is no note of universality, 
of solidarity, of immortality. To live through 
the centuries and pervade the uttermost ends 
of the earth, to stand while kingdoms tottered 
and civilizations changed, to survive fallen 
churches and crumbling creeds — there was no 
soil for the Kingdom of God like the hearts of 
common men. Some who have written about 
this Kingdom have emphasized its moral 
grandeur, others its universality, others its 
adaptation to man's needs. One great writer 
speaks of its prodigious originality, another 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 

chiefly notices its success. I confess what al- 
most strikes me most is the miracle of its 
simplicity. 

Men, then, are the only means God's Spirit 
has of accomplishing His purpose. What 
men ? You. Is it worth doing, or is it not ? 
Is it worth while joining Christ's Society, or 
is it not ? What do you do all day ? What 
is your personal stake in the coming of the 
Kingdom of Christ on earth ? You are not 
interested in religion, you tell me ; you do 
not care for your " soul." It w T as not about 
your religion I ventured to ask, still less about 
your soul. That you have no religion, that 
you do not care for your soul, does not absolve 
you from caring for the world in which you. 
live. But you do not believe in this church, 
you reply, or accept this doctrine or that. 
Christ does not, in the first instance, ask your 



58 THE PROGRAMME 

thoughts, but your work. No man has a 
right to postpone his life for the sake of his 
thoughts. Why? Because this is a real 
world, not a think world. Treat it as a real 
world — act. Think by all means, but think 
also of what is actual, of what like the stern 
world is, of how much even you, creedless and 
churchless, could do to make it better* The 
thing to be anxious about is not to be right 
with man, but with mankind. And, so far as 
I know, there is nothing so on all fours with 
mankind as Christianity. 

There are versions of Christianity, it is 
true, which no self-respecting mind can do 
other than disown — versions so hard, so nar- 
row, so unreal, so super-theological, that prac- 
tical men can find in them neither outlet for 
their lives nor resting-place for their thoughts. 
With these we have nothing to do. With 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 

these Christ had nothing to do — except to 
oppose them with every word and act of His 
life. It too seldom occurs to those who re- 
pudiate Christianity because of its narrowness 
or its unpracticalness, its sanctimoniousness or 
its dulness, that these were the very things 
which Christ strove against and unweariedly 
condemned. It was the one risk of His relig- 
ion being given to the common people — 
an inevitable risk which He took without re- 
serve — that its infinite lustre should be tar- 
nished in the fingering of the crowd or have 
its great truths narrowed into mean and un- 
worthy moulds as they passed from lip to lip. 
But though the crowd is the object of Chris- 
tianity, it is not its custodian. Deal with the 
Founder of this great Commonwealth Him- 
self. Any man of honest purpose who will 
take the trouble to inquire at first hand what 



6o THE PROGRAMME 

Christianity really is will find it a thing he 
cannot get away from. Without either argu- 
ment or pressure, by the mere practicalness 
of its aims and the pathos of its compassions, 
it forces its august claim upon every serious 
life. 

He who joins this Society finds himself 
in a large place. The Kingdom of God is a 
Society of the best men, working for the best 
ends, according to the best methods. Its 
membership is a multitude whom no man can 
number ; its methods are as various as human 
nature ; its field is the world. It is a Com- 
monwealth, yet it honours a King ; it is a 
Social Brotherhood, but it acknowledges the 
Fatherhood of God. Though not a Philos- 
ophy the world turns to it for light ; though 
not Political it is the incubator of all great 
laws. It is more human than the State, for 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 6l 

it deals with deeper needs ; more Catholic 
than the Church, for it includes whom the 
Church rejects. It is a Propaganda, yet it 
works not by agitation but by ideals. It is 
a Religion, yet it holds the worship of God 
to be mainly the service of man. Though 
not a Scientific Society its watchword is Evo- 
lution ; though not an Ethic it possesses the 
Sermon on the Mount. This mysterious 
Society owns no wealth but distributes fort- 
unes. It has no minutes for history keeps 
them ; no member's roll for no one could 
make it. Its entry-money is nothing; its sub- 
scription, all you have. The Society never 
meets and it never adjourns. Its law is one 
word — loyalty ; its Gospel one message— love. 
Verily " Whosoever will lose his life for My 
sake shall find it." 

The Programme for the other life is not 



62 THE PROGRAMME OF CHRISTIANITY. 

out yet. For this world, for these faculties, 
for his one short life, I know nothing that is 
offered to man to compare with membership 
in the Kingdom of God. Among the myste- 
ries which compass the world beyond, none Is 
greater than how there can be in store for 
man a work more wonderful, a life more God- 
like than this. If you know anything better, 
live for it ; if not, in the name of God and of 
Humanity, carry out Christ's plan. 



6J 



THE GREATEST THING 
IN THE WORLD 



COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 

JAMES POTT & C<Q, 



Though I speak with the tongues of men and oi 
angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, 
or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of 
prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; 
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove moun- 
tains, and have not Love, I am nothing. And though I 
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give 
my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me 
notning. 



Lore suffereth long, and is kind ; 

Love envieth not ; 

Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up 

Doth not behave itself unseemly, 

Seeketh not her own, 

Is not easily provoked, 

Thinketh no evil ; 

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; 

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things 

endureth all things. 



Love never faileth : but vhether there be prophecies, 
they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; 
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we 
know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that 
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall 
be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, 
I understood as a child, I thought as a child : but when 
I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we 
see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face : now I 
know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I am 
known. And now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three ; 
but the greatest of these is Love. — i Cor. xiii. 



THE GREATEST THING 
IN THE WORLD 



Every one has asked himself the great ques- 
tion of antiquity as of the modern world : 
What is the summum bonum — the supreme 
good ? You have life before you. Once only 
you can live it. What is the noblest object of 
desire, the supreme gift to covet ? 

We have been accustomed to be told that 
the greatest thing in the religious world is 
Faith. That great word has been the key-note 
for centuries of the popular religion ; and we 
have easily learned to look upon it as the 
greatest thing in the world. Well, we are 



IO THE GREATEST THING 

wrong. If we have been told that, we may 
miss the mark. I have taken you, in the 
chapter which I have just read, to Christianity 
at its source; and there we have seen, " The 
greatest of these is love." It is not an over- 
sight. Paul was speaking of faith just a 
moment before. He says, " If I have all faith, 
so that I can remove mountains, and have not 
love, I am nothing." So far from forgetting 
he deliberately contrasts them, " Now abideth 
Faith, Hope, Love," and without a moment's 
hesitation the decision falls, " The greatest of 
these is Love." 

And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to 
recommend to others his own strong point, 
Love was not Paul's strong point. The observ- 
ing student can detect a beautiful tenderness 
growing and ripening all through his character 
as Paul gets old ; but the hand that wrote, 



7/ 



IN THE WORLD. II 

11 The greatest of these is love," when we meet 
it first, is stained with blood. 

Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar 
in singling out love as the summum bonum. 
The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed 
about it. Peter says, " Above all things have 
fervent love among yourselves. " Above all 
things. And John goes farther, " God is love." 
And you remember the profound remark which 
Paul makes elsewhere, " Love is the fulfilling of 
the law." Did you ever think what he meant 
by that ? In those days men were working 
their passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten 
Commandments, and the hundred and ten other 
commandments which they had manufactured 
out of them. Christ said, I will show you a 
more simple way. If you do one thing, you 
will do these hundred and ten things, without 
ever thinking about them. If you love, you 



12 THE GREATEST THING 

will unconsciously fulfil the whole law. And 
you can readily see for yourselves how that 
must be so. Take any of the commandments. 
" Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." 
If a man love God, you will not require to tell 
him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. 
"Take not His name in vain." Would he ever 
dream of taking His name in vain if he loved 
Him? " Remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy." Would he not be too glad to have 
one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively 
to the object of his affection? Love would 
fulfil all these laws regarding God. And so, if 
he loved Man, you would never think of telling 
him to honour his father and mother. He 
could not do anything else. It would be pre- 
posterous to tell him not to kill. You could 
only insult him if you suggested that he should 
not steal — how could he steal from those he 



IN THE WORLD. 1 3 

loved? It would be superfluous to beg him 
not to bear false witness against his neighbour. 
If he loved him it would be the last thing he 
would do. And you would never dream of 
urging him not to covet what his neighbours 
had. He would rather they possessed it than 
himself. In this way " Love is the fulfilling of 
the law." It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, 
the new commandment for keeping all the 
old commandments, Christ's one secret of the 
Christian life. 

Now Paul had learned that; and in this 
noble eulogy he has given us the most wonder- 
ful and original account extant of the summum 
bonurn* We may divide it into three parts. In 
the beginning of the short chapter, we have 
Love contrasted ; in the heart of it, we have 
Love analysed ; towards the end, we have Love 
defended as the supreme gift. 




THE CONTRAST 

PAUL begins by contrasting Love with othei 
things that men in those days thought much of. 
I shall not attempt to go over those things in 
detail. Their inferiority is already obvious. 

He contrasts it with eloquence. And what 
a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the 
souls and wills of men, and rousing them to 
lofty purposes and holy deeds. Paul says, " If 
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have not love, I am become as sounding 
brass, or a tinkling cymbal." And we all know 
why. We have all felt the brazenness of words 
without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccount 



THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 1 5 

able unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind 
which lies no Love. 

He contrasts it with prophecy. He con* 
trasts it with mysteries. He contrasts it with 
faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why is 
Love greater than faith ? Because the end is 
greater than the means. And why is it greater 
than charity? Because the whole is greater 
than the part. Love is greater than faith, 
because the end is greater than the means, 
What is the use of having faith ? It is to con- 
nect the soul with God. And what is the 
object of connecting man with God ? That he 
may become like God, But God is Love. 
Hence Faith, the means, is in order to Love, 
the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater 
than faith. It is greater than charity, again, 
because the whole is greater than a part. 
Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the 



l6 THE GREATEST THING 

innumerable avenues of Love, and there may 
even be, and there is, a great deal of charity 
without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a 
copper to a beggar on the street ; it is generally 
an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is 
just as often in the withholding. We purchase 
relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by 
the spectacle of misery, at the copper's cost. 
It is too cheap — too cheap for us, and often 
too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him 
we would either do more for him, or less. 

Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and 
martyrdom. And I beg the little band of 
would-be missionaries — and I have the honour 
to call some of you by this name for the first 
time — to remember that though you give your 
bodies to be burned, and have not Love, it pro* 
fits nothing-— nothing ! You can take nothing 
greater to the heathen world than the impress 



17 



IN THE WORLD. 17 



and reflection of the Love of God upon your 
own character. That is the universal language. 
It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or 
in the dialects of India. From the day you 
land, that language of Love, understood by all, 
will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. 
It is the man who is the missionary, it is not 
his words. His character is his message. In 
the heart of Africa, among the great Lakes, 
I have come across black men and women who 
remembered the only white man they ever saw 
before — David Livingstone ; and as you cross 
his footsteps in that dark continent, men's faces 
light up as they speak of the kind Doctor who 
passed there years ago. They could not under- 
stand him ; but they felt the Love that beat in 
his heart. Take into your new sphere of 
labour, where you also mean to lay down your 
life, that simple charm, and your lifework must 



1 8 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

succeed. You can take nothing greater, you 
need take nothing less. It is not worth while 
going if you take anything less. You may take 
every accomplishment ; you may be braced for 
every sacrifice ; but if you give your body to be 
burned, and have not Love, it will profit you 
and the cause of Christ nothing. 




7* 




THE ANALYSIS 

After contrasting Love with these things, 
Paul, in three verses, very short, gives us an 
amazing analysis of what this supreme thing 
is. I ask you to look at it. It is a compound 
thing, he tells us. It is like light. As you 
have seen a man of science take a beam of light 
and pass it through a crystal prism, as you 
have seen it come out on the other side of 
the prism broken up into its component colours 
— red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and 
orange, and all the colours of the rainbow — so 
Paul passes this thing, Love, through the mag- 
nificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it 



20 THE GREATEST THING 

comes out on the other side broken up into its 
elements. And in these few words we have 
what one might call the Spectrum of Love, the 
analysis of Love. Will you observe what its 
elements are ? Will you notice that they have 
common names ; that they are virtues which we 
hear about every day, that they are things 
which can be practised by every man in every 
place in life ; and how, by a multitude of small 
things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, 
the summum bonutn, is made up ? 

The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredi- 
ents :— 

Patience . . " Love suffereth long." 
Kindness. . " And is kind." 
Generosity . " Love envieth not." 
Humility . " Love vaunteth not itself, is not 
puffed up." 



y ' 



IN THE WORLD. 21 

Courtesy . . " Doth not behave itself un 

seemly." 
Unselfishness " Seeketh not her own." 
Good Temper " Is not easily provoked." 
Guilelessness " Thinketh no evil." 
Sincerity . . " Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 

rejoiceth in the truth." 

Patience ; kindness ; generosity ; humility . 
courtesy ; unselfishness ; good temper ; guile- 
lessness ; sincerity — -these make up the supreme 
gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will 
observe that all are in relation to men, in relation 
to life, in relation to the known to-day and the 
near to-morrow, and not to the unknown 
eternity. We hear much of love to God ; 
Christ spoke much of love to man. We make 
a great deal of peace with heaven ; Christ made 
much of peace on earth. Religion is not 3 



22 THE GREATEST THING 

strange or added thing, but the inspiration ol 
the secular life, the breathing of an eternal 
spirit through this temporal world. The su- 
preme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but 
the giving of a further finish to the multitudi- 
nous words and acts which make up the sum of 
every common day. 

There is no time to do more than make a 
passing note upon each of these ingredients. 
Love is Patience. This is the normal atti- 
tude of Love ; Love passive, Love waiting to 
begin ; not in a hurry ; calm ; ready to do its 
work when the summons comes, but meantime 
wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit. Love suffers longjbeareth all things; 
believeth all things ; hopeth all things. For 
Love understands, and therefore waits. 

Kindness. Love active. Have you ever 
noticed how much of Christ's life was spent in * 



IN THE WORLD. 23 

doing kind things — in merely doing kind things? 
Run over it with that in view, and you will find 
that He spent a great proportion of His time 
simply in making people happy, in doing good 
turns to people. There is only one thing 
greater than happiness in the world, and that 
is holiness ; and it is not in our keeping ; but 
what God has put in our power is the happiness 
of those about us, and that is largely to be 
secured by our being kind to them. 

" The greatest thing," says some one, " a 
man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be 
kind to some of His other children." I wonder 
why it is that we are not all kinder than we 
are ? How much the world needs it. How 
easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. 
How infallibly it is remembered. How super, 
abundantly it pays itself back — for there is no 
debtor in the world so honourable, so superbly 



24 Ttt£ GREATEST THING 

honourable, as Love. " Love never faileth/ 5 
Love is success, Love is happiness, Love is life. 
" Love, I say," with Browning, " is energy of 
Life/' 

" For life, with all it yields of joy or woe 
And hope and fear, 

Is just our chance o* the prize of learning love, — 
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is." 

Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in 
Love dwelleth in God. God is Love. There- 
fore love. Without distinction, without calcula- 
tion, without procrastination, love. Lavish it 
upon the poor, where it is very easy ; especially 
upon the rich, who often need it most ; most of 
all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, 
and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. 
There is a difference between trying to please 
and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no 
chance of giving pleasure. For that is the 



0* 



IN THE WORLD. 3$ 

ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly 
loving spirit. " I shall pass 'through this world 
but once. Any good thing therefore that 1 
can do, or any kindness that I can show to any 
human being, let me do it now. Let me not 
defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this 
way again/* 

Generosity. " Love envieth not." This is 
love in competition with others. Whenever you 
attempt a good work you will find other men 
doing the same kind of work, and probably 
doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a 
feeling of ill-will to those who are in the 
same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetous- 
ness and detraction. How little Christian 
work even is a protection against un-Christia;i 
feeling. That most despicable of all the un. 
worthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul 
assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every 



26 THE GREATEST THING 

work, unless we are fortified with this grace ol 
magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the 
Christian envy, the large, rich, generous soul 
which " envieth not." 

And then, after having learned all that, you 
have to learn this further thing, Humility — to 
put a seal upon your lips and forget what you 
have done. After you have been kind, after 
Love has stolen forth into the world and done 
its beautiful work, go back into the shade again 
and say nothing about it. Love hides even 
from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. 
" Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. M 

The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange 
one to find in this summum bonum : Courtesy. 
This is Love in society, Love in relation to 
etiquette. " Love doth not behave itself un 
seemly." Politeness has been defined as love in 
trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little 



*/ 



IN THE WORLD. 2? 

things. And the one secret of politeness is to 
love. Love cannot behave itself unseemly. You 
can put the most untutored persons into the 
highest society, and if they have a reservoir of 
Love in their heart, they will not behave them- 
selves unseemly. They simply cannot do it. 
Carlyle said of Robert Burns that there was no 
truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman- 
poet. It was because he loved everything — the 
mouse, and the daisy, and all the things, great 
and small, that God had made. So with this 
simple passport he could mingle with any 
society, and enter courts and palaces from his 
little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. You 
know the meaning of the word " gentleman w 
It means a gentle man — a man who does 
things gently with love. And that is the 
whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man 
cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle. 



28 THE GREATEST THING 

an unger) tlemanly thing. The ungentle soul 
the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature can- 
not do anything else. " Love doth not behave 
itself unseemly." 

Unselfishness, " Love seeketh not her own." 
Observe : Seeketh not even that which is her 
own, In Britain the Englishman is devoted, 
and rightly, to his rights. But there come 
times when a man may exercise even the higher 
right of giving up his rights. Yet Paul does 
not summon us to give up our rights. Love 
strikes much deeper. It would have us not 
seek them at all, ignore them, eliminate the 
personal element altogether from our calcula. 
tions. It is not hard to give up our rights. 
They are often external. The difficult thing is 
to give up ourselves. The more difficult thing 
still is not to seek things for ourselves at all 
After we have sought them, bought them, won 



IN THE WORLD. 2g 

them, deserved them, we have taken the cream 
off them for ourselves already. Little cross then 
perhaps to give them up. But not to seek them, 
to look every man not on his own things, but 
on the things of others — id opus est. " Seekest 
thou great things for thyself? " said the prophet; 
"seek them not" Why? Because there is no 
greatness in things. Things cannot be great. 
The only greatness is unselfish love. Even 
self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mis- 
take. Only a great purpose or a mightier love 
can justify the waste. It is more difficult, I 
have said, not to seek our own at all, than, 
having sought it, to give it up. I must take 
that back. It is only true of a partly selfish 
heart. Nothing is a hardship to Love, and 
nothing is hard. I believe that Christ's yoke 
is easy. Christ's "yoke" is just His way of 
taking life. And I believe it is an easier way 



^O THE GREATEST THING 

than any other. I believe it is a happier way 
than any other. The most obvious lesson in 
Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness 
in having and getting anything, but only in 
giving. I repeat, there is no happiness in having 
or in getting, but only in giving. And half the 
world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of 
happiness. They think it consists in having 
and getting, and in being served by others. It 
consists in giving, and in serving others. He 
that would be great among you, said Christ, let 
him serve. He that would be happy, let him 
remember that there is but one way — it is more 
blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive. 
The next ingredient is a very remarkable 
one : Good Temper. " Love is not easily pro- 
voked." Nothing could be more striking than 
to find this here. We are inclined to look 
upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness 



11 



IN THE WORLD. 31 

We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a 
family failing, a matter of temperament, not a 
thing to take into very serious account in 
estimating a man's character. And yet here, 
right in the heart of this analysis of love, it 
finds a place; and the Bible again and again 
returns to condemn it as one of the most 
destructive elements in human nature. 

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the 
vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot 
on an otherwise noble character. You know 
men who are all but perfect, and women who 
would be entirely perfect, but for an easily 
ruffled, quick-tempered, or " touchy" disposi- 
tion. This compatibility of ill temper with high 
moral character is one of the strangest and sad- 
dest problems of ethics. The truth is there are 
two great classes of sins— sins of the Body, and 
sins of the Disposition. The Prodigal Son may 



32 THE GREATEST THING 

be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother 
of the second. Now society has no doubt 
whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its 
brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Pro- 
digal. But are we right ? We have no balance 
to weigh one another's sins, and coarser and 
finer are but human words ; but faults in the 
higher nature may be less venial than those in 
the lower, and to the eye of Him who is Love, 
►a sin against Love may seem a hundred times 
more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, 
not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does 
more to un-Christianise society than evil temper. 
For embittering life, for breaking up communi- 
ties, for destroying the most sacred relationships, 
for devastating homes, for withering up men 
and women, for taking the bloom off childhood, 
in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing 
power, this influence stands alone. Look at 



13 



IN THE WORLD. 33 



the Elder Brother, moral, hard-working, patient, 
dutiful — let him get all credit for his /irtues— - 
look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his 
own father's door. " He was angry," we read, 
" and would not go in." Look at the effect 
upon the father, upon the servants, upon the 
happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect 
upon the Prodigal — and how many prodigals 
are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the 
unlovely character of those who profess to be 
inside? Analyse, as a study in Temper, the 
thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder 
Brother's brow. What is it made of ? Jealousy, 
anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteous-, 
ness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness — these 
are the ingredients of this dark and loveless 
soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the 
ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins 
of the disposition are not worse to live in, and 



34 THE GREATEST THING 

for others to live with, than sins of the body 
Did Christ indeed not answer the question 
Himself when He said, " I say unto you, that 
the publicans and the harlots go into the King- 
dom of Heaven before you." There is really no 
place in Heaven for a disposition like this. A 
man with such a mood could only make Heaven 
miserable for all the people in it. Except, 
therefore, such a man be born again, he cannot, 
he simply cannot \ enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 
For it is perfectly certain — and you will not 
misunderstand me — that to enter Heaven a 
man must take it with him. 

Vou will see then why Temper is significant. 
It is not in what it is alone, but in what it re- 
veals. This is why I take the liberty now of 
speaking of it with such unusual plainness. It 
is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an 
unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermit 



9* 



IN THE WORLD. 35 

tent fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease 
within ; the occasional bubble escaping to the 
surface which betrays some rottenness under- 
neath; a sample of the most hidden products 
of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one's 
guard ; in a word, the lightning form of a hun- 
dred hideous and un-Christian sins. For a want 
of patience, a want of kindness, a want of gen 
erosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfish 
ness, are all instantaneously symbolised in one 
flash of Temper. 

Hence it is not enough to deal with the Tern 
per. We must go to the source, and change the 
inmost nature, and the angry humours will die 
away of themselves. Souls are made sweet 
not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting 
something in — a great Love, a new Spirit, the 
Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ 
interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, trans- 



36 THE GREATEST THING 

forms all. This only can eradicate what is 
wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and 
regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. 
Will-power does not change men. Time does 
not change men. Christ does. Therefore 
" Let that mind be in you which was also in 
Christ Jesus." Some of us have not much 
time to lose. Remember, once more, that this 
is a matter of life or death. I cannot help 
speaking urgently, for myself, for yourselves. 
" Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, 
which believe in me, it were better for him 
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
and that he were drowned in the depth of the 
sea." That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict 
of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live 
than not to love. // is better not to live than 
not to love. 

Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed 



11 



IN THE WORLD, 37 

almost with a word. Guilelessness is the grace 
for suspicious people. And the possession of 
it is the great secret of personal influence. 
You will find, if you think for a moment, that 
the people who influence you are people who 
believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion 
men shrivel up ; but in that atmosphere they 
expand, and find encouragement and educative 
fellowship. It is a wonderful thing that here 
and there in this hard, uncharitable world there 
should still be left a few rare souls who think 
no evil. This is the great unworldliness. 
Love " thinketh no evil," imputes no motive, 
sees the bright side, puts the best construction 
on every action. What a delightful state o* 
mind to live in ! What a stimulus and bene- 
diction even to meet with it for a day! To 
be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to 
influence or elevate others, we shall soon see 



38 THE GREATEST THING 

that success is in proportion to their belief ol 
our belief in them. For the respect of anothei 
is the first restoration of the self-respect a man 
has lost ; our ideal of what he is becomes to 
him the hope and pattern of what he may 
become. 

"Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
in the truth." I have called this Sincerity from 
the words rendered in the Authorised Version 
by " rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, 
were this the real translation, nothing could be 
more just. For he who loves will love Truth not 
less than men. He will rejoice in the Truth- 
rejoice not in what he has been taught to 
believe ; not in this Church's doctrine or in 
that ; not in this ism or in that ism ; but " in 
the Truth*' He will accept only what is real ; 
he will strive to get at facts ; he will search fof 
Truth with a humble and unbiassed mind, and 



■ 1 



IN THE WORLD. 39 

cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But 
the more literal translation of the Revised 
Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth's 
sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as 
we there read, " Rejoiceth not in unrighteous- 
ness, but rejoiceth with the truth/' a quality 
which probably no one English word— and 
certainly not Sincerity— adequately defines. 
It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self 
restraint which refuses to make capital out of 
others' faults ; the charity which delights not 
in exposing the weakness of others, but " cover- 
eth all things ; " the sincerity of purpose which 
endeavours to s^e things as they are, and re- 
joices to find them better than suspicion feared 
or calumny denounced. 

So much for the analysis of Love. Now 
the business of our lives is to have these 
things fitted into our characters. That is the 



40 THE GREATEST THING 

supreme work to which we need to address 
ourselves in this world, to learn Love. Is life 
not full of opportunities for learning Love? 
Every man and woman every day has a 
thousand of them. The world is not a play, 
ground ; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a 
holiday, but an education. And the one eternal 
lesson for us all is how better we can love. What 
makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. 
What makes a man a good artist, a good 
sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What 
makes a man a good linguist, a good steno- 
grapher? Practice. What makes a man a 
good man? Practice. Nothing else. There 
is nothing capricious about religion. We do 
not get the soul in different ways, under differ- 
ent laws, from those in which we get the body 
and the mind. If a man does not exercise his 
arm he develops no biceps muscle ; and if a 



I0\ 



IN THE WORLIV 41 

man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no 
muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no 
vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual 
growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic 
emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous 
expression of the whole round Christian char- 
acter — the Christlike nature in its fullest de- 
velopment. And the constituents of this great 
character are only to be built up by ceaseless 
practice. 

What was Christ doing in the carpenter's 
shop? Practising. Though perfect, we read 
that He learned obedience, and grew in wis- 
dom and in favor with God. Do not quarrel 
therefore with your lot in life. Do not complain 
of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, 
the vexations you have to stand, the small and 
sordid souls you have to live and work with. 
Above all, do not resent temptation ; do riot 



42 THE GREATEST THING 

be perplexed because it seems to thicken round 
you more and more, and ceases neither for 
effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is yout 
practice. That is the practice which God 
appoints you ; and it is having its work in 
making you patient, and humble, and generous, 
and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do 
not grudge the hand that is moulding the still 
too shapeless image within you. It is growing 
more beautiful though you see it not, and 
every touch of temptation may add to its per- 
fection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. 
Do not isolate yourself. Be among men, and 
among things, and among troubles, and diffih 
culties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's 
words : Es bildet ein Talent sick in der Stille, 
Dock ein Character in dem Strom der Welt, 
u Talent develops itself in solitude ; character 
in the stream of life/* Talent develops itself 



ioZ 



IN THE WORLD 43 



in solitude — the talent of prayer, of faith, oi 
meditation, of seeing the unseen ; Charactei 
grows in the stream of the world's life. That 
chiefly is where men are to learn love* 

How? Now, how? To make it easier, I 
have named a few of the elements of love 
But these are only elements. Love itself can 
never be defined. Light is a something more 
than the sum of its ingredients — a glowing 
dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is some 
thing more than all its elements — a palpitating, 
quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis 
of all the colours, men can make whiteness, 
they cannot make light. By synthesis of all 
the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot 
make love. How then are we to have this 
transcendent living whole conveyed into ouf 
souls ? We brace our wills to secure it. We 
try to copy those who have it. We lay down 



44 THE GREATEST THING 

rules about it. We watch. We pray. But 
these things alone will not bring Love into oui 
nature. Love is an effect. And only as w& 
fulfil the right condition can we have the effect 
produced* Shall I tell you what the cause is ? 
If you turn to the Revised Version of the 
First Epistle of John you will find these words : 
"We love because He first loved us." "We 
love," not " We love Hint" That is the way 
the old version has it, and it is quite wrong. 
" We love — because He first loved us," Look 
at that word " because." It is the cause of 
which I have spoken. "Because He first loved 
us," the effect follows that we love, we love 
Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. 
Because He loved us, we love, we love every 
body. Our heart is slowly changed. Con< 
template the love of Christ, and you will love, 
Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's char 



,*s- 



IN THE WORLD. 45 

acter, and you will be changed into the same 
image from tenderness to tenderness. There 
is no other way. You cannot love to order, 
You caA only look at the lovely object, and fall 
in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. 
And so look at this Perfect Character, this 
Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as 
He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon 
the Cross of Calvary ; and you must love Him. 
And loving Him, you must become like Him, 
Love begets love. It is a process of induction. 
Put a piece of iron in the presence of an electri- 
fied body, and that piece of iron for a time 
becomes electrified. It is changed into a tem- 
porary magnet in the mere presence of a per- 
manent magnet, and as long as you leave the 
two side by side, they are both magnets alike, 
Remain side by side with Him who loved us, 
and gave Himself for us, and you too will be* 



46 THE GREATEST THING 

come a permanent magnet, a permanently 
attractive force .; and like Him you will draw 
all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn, 
unto all men. That is the inevitable effect 
of Love, Any man who fulfils that cause 
must have that effect produced in him. Try to 
give up the idea that religion comes to us by 
chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes 
to us by natural law, or by supernatural law, 
for all law is Divine t Edward Irving went to 
see a dying boy once, and when he entered the 
room he just put his hand on the sufferer's 
head, and said, " My boy, God loves you," and 
went away. And the boy started from his bed, 
and called out to the people in the house, " God 
loves me ! God loves me ! " It changed that boy. 
The sense that God loved him overpowered 
him, melted him down, and began the creating 
of a new heart in him. And that is how the 



IN THE WORLD* 47 

love of God melts down the unlovely heart in 
man, and begets in him the new creature, who 
is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. 
And there is no other way to get it. There is 
no mystery about it e We love others, we love 
everybody, we love our enemies, because He 
first loved us 





THE DEFENCE 

Now I have a closing sentence or two to add 
about Paul's reason for singling out love as the 
supreme possession. It is a very remarkable 
reason. In a single word it is this : it lasts. 
" Love," urges Paul, " never faileth." Then he 
begins again one of his marvellous lists of the 
great things of the day, and exposes them one 
by one. He runs over the things that men 
thought were going to last, and shows that they 
are all fleeting, temporary, passing aw T ay. 

" Whether there be prophecies, they shall 
fail." It was the mother's ambition for her boy 
in those days that he should become a prophet 



THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 49 

For hundreds of years God had never spoken 
by means of any prophet, and at that time 
the prophet was greater than the King. Men 
waited wistfully for another messenger to come, 
and hung upon his lips when he appeared as 
upon the very voice of God. Paul says, 
" Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail/ 4 
This Book is full of prophecies. One by one 
they have " failed M ; that is, having been ful 
filled their work is finished : they have nothing 
more to do now in the world except to feed a 
devout man's faith 

Then Paul talks about tongues. That was 
another thing that was greatly coveted, 
" Whether there be tongues, they shall cease/ 
As we all know, many, many centuries have 
passed since tongues have been known in this 
world. They have ceased. Take it in any 
sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, 



50 THE GREATEST THING 

as languages in general — a sense which was not 
in Paul's mind at all, and which though it can. 
not give us the specific lesson will point the 
general truth* Consider the words in which 
these chapters were written — Greek. It has 
gone* Take the Latin— the other great tongue 
of those daysc It ceased long ago< Look at 
the Indian language. It is ceasing. The 
language of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish 
Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most 
popular book in the English tongue at the 
present time, except the Bible, is one of 
Dickens's works, his Pickwick Papers* It is 
largely written in the language of London 
street-life ; and experts assure us that in fifty 
years it will be unintelligible to the average 
English reader. 

Then Paul goes farther, and with even 
greater boldness adds, " Whether there be 



IN THE WORLD, 5 1 

knowledge, it shall vanish away." The wisdom 
of the ancients, where is it ? It is wholly gone 
A schoolboy to-day knows more than Sir Isaac 
Newton knew. His knowledge has vanished 
away. You put yesterday's newspaper in the 
fire. Its knowledge has vanished away. You 
buy the old editions of the great encyclopaedias 
for a few pence. Their knowledge has vanished 
away. Look how the coach has been super- 
seded by the use of steam. Look how elec- 
tricity has superseded that, and swept a hundred 
almost new inventions into oblivion. One of 
the greatest living authorities, Sir William 
Thompson, said the other day, " The steam- 
engine is passing away." " Whether there be 
knowledge, it shall vanish away." At every 
workshop you will see, in the back yard, a heap 
of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few 
cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty 



$2 THE GREATEST THI1VG 

years ago that was the pride of the city. Men 
flocked in from the country to see the great 
invention ; now it is superseded, its day is done. 
And all the boasted science and philosophy of 
this day will soon be old. But yesterday, in 
the University of Edinburgh, the greatest figure 
in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the 
discoverer of chloroform. The other day his 
successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was 
asked by the librarian of the University to go 
to the library and pick out the books on his 
subject that were no longer needed. And his 
reply to the librarian was this : " Take every 
text-book that is more than ten years old, and 
put it down in the cellar." Sir James Simpson 
was a great authority only a few years ago : 
men came from all parts of the earth to consult 
him ; and almost the whole teaching of that 
time is consigned by the science of to-day to 



)I3 



IN THE WORLD. 53 

oblivion. And in every branch of science it h 
the same. " Now we know in part. We see 
through a glass darkly." 

Can you tell me anything that is going to 
last? Many things Paul did not condescend 
to name. He did not mention money, fortune, 
fame ; but he picked out the great things of his 
time, the things the best men thought had 
something in them, and brushed them peremp- 
torily aside. Paul had no charge against these 
things in themselves. All he said about them 
was that they would not last. They were great 
things, but not supreme things. There were 
things beyond them. What we are stretches 
past what we do, beyond what we possess. 
Many things that men denounce as sins are not 
sins ; but they are temporary. And that is a 
favourite argument of the New Testament. 
John says of the world, not that it is wrong 



54 THE GREATEST THING 

but simply that it " passeth away/ 5 There is a 
great deal in the world that is delightful and 
beautiful ; there is a great deal in it that is 
great and engrossing ; but it will not last. All 
that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust 
of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for 
a little while. Love not the world therefore. 
Nothing that it contains is worth the life and 
consecration of an immortal soul. The im- 
mortal soul must give itself to something that 
is immortal. And the only immortal things 
are these : " Now abideth faith, hope, love, but 
the greatest of these is love." 

Some think the time may come when two 
of these three things will also pass away — faith 
into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not 
say so. We know but. little now about the 
conditions of the life that is to come. But 
what is certain is that Love must last God, 



IN THE WORLD, 55 

the Eternal God, is Love. Covet therefore 
that everlasting gift, that one thing which it is 
certain is going to stand, that one coinage 
which will be current in the Universe when 
all the other coinages of all the nations of 
the world shall be useless and unhonoured. 
You will give yourselves to many things, give 
yourselves first to Love. Hold things in their 
proportion. Hold things in their proportion. 
Let at least the first great object of our lives 
be to achieve the character defended in these 
words, the character — and it is the character 
of Christ — which is built round Love. 

I have said this thing is eternal. Did you 
ever notice how continually John associates 
love and faith with eternal life? I was not 
told when I was a boy that " God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in Him should have 



56 THE GREATEST THING 

everlasting life." What I was told, I remember 
was, that God so loved the world that, if I 
trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called 
peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have 
joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to 
find out for myself that whosoever trusteth in 
Him — that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust 
is only the avenue to Love — hath everlasting 
life. The Gospel offers a man life. Never 
offer men a thimbleful of Gospel. Do not 
offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or 
merely rest, or merely safety ; tell them how 
Christ came to give men a more abundant life 
than they have, a life abundant in love, and 
therefore abundant in salvation for themselves, 
and large in enterprise for the alleviation and 
redemption of the world. Then only can the 
Gospel take hold of the whole of a man, body, 
soul, and spirit, and give to each part of his 



m 



IN THE WORLD. 57 

nature its exercise and reward. Many of the 
current Gospels are addressed only to a part of 
man's nature. They offer peace, not life ; faith, 
not Love; justification, not regeneration. And 
men slip back again from such religion because 
it has never really held them. Their nature 
was not all in it. It offered no deeper and 
gladder life-current than the life that was lived 
before. Surely it stands to reason that only a 
fuller love can compete with the love of the world 
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, 
and to love for ever is to live for even Hence, 
eternal life is inextricably bound up with love. 
We want to live for ever for the same reason 
that we want to live to-morrow. Why do you 
want to live to-morrow? It is because there 
is some one who loves you, and whom you 
want to see to-morrow, and be with, and love 
back. There is no other reason why we should 



$8 THE GREATEST THING 

live on than that we love and are beloved. It 
is when a man has no one to love him that he 
commits suicide. So long as he has friends, 
those who love him and whom he loves, he will 
live ; because to live is to love. Be it but the 
love of a dog, it will keep him in life ; but let 
that go and he has no contact with life, no 
reason to live. He dies by his own hand. 
Eternal life also is to know God, and God is 
love. This is Christ's own definition. Ponder 
it. " This is life eternal, that they might 
know Thee the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom Thou has sent/* Love must 
be eternal. It is what God is. On the last 
analysis, then, love is life. Love never faileth, 
and life never faileth, so long as there is love, 
That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing 
us; the reason why in the nature of things 
Love should be the supreme thing- — because it 



IN THE WORLD, 59 



is going to last ; because in the nature of things 
it is an Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are 
living now, not that we get when we die that 
we shall have a poor chance of getting when 
we die unless we are living now. No worse 
fate can befall a man in this world than to live 
and grow old alone, unloving, and unloved. To 
be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, 
loveless and unloved ; and to be saved is to 
love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth 
already in God. For God is love. 

Now I have all but finished. How many 
of you will join me in reading this chapter once 
a week for the next three months ? A man 
did that once and it changed his whole life, 
Will you do it ? It i$ for the greatest thing in 
the world. You might begin by reading it 
every day, especially the verses which describe 
the perfect character. " Love suffereth long, 



SO THE GREATEST THING 

and is kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth 
not itself." Get these ingredients into youf 
life. Then everything that you do is eternal. 
It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. 
No man can become a saint in his sleep; and to 
fulfil the condition required demands a certain 
amount of prayer and meditation and time, just 
as improvement in any direction, bodily or 
mental, requires preparation and care. Address 
yourselves to that one thing ; at any cost have 
this transcendent character exchanged for yours. 
You will find as you look back upon your life 
that the moments that stand out, the moments 
when you have really lived, are the moments 
when you have done things in a spirit of love. 
As memory scans the past, above and beyond all 
the transitory pleasures of life, there leap for- 
ward those supreme hours when you have been 
enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those 



12.1 



IN THE WORLD, 6l 

round about you, things too trifling to speak 
about, but which you feel have entered into 
your eternal life. I have seen almost all the 
beautiful things God has made ; I have enjoyed 
almost every pleasure that He has planned for 
man ; and yet as I look back I see standing 
out above all the life that has gone four or five 
short experiences when the love of God reflected 
itself in some poor imitation, some small act of 
love of mine, and these seem to be the things 
which alone of all one's life abide. Everything 
else in all our lives is transitory. Every other 
good is visionary. But the acts of love which 
no man knows about, or can ever know about 
— they never fail. 

In the Book of Matthew, where the Judg« 
ment Day is depicted for us in the imagery of 
One seated upon a throne and dividing the 
sheep from the goats, the test of a man then is 



62 THE GREATEST THING 



not, " How have I believed? " but " How have 
I loved ? " The test of religion, the final test 
of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I 
say the final test of religion at that great Day 
js not religiousness, but Love ; not what I have 
done, not what I have believed, not what 1 
have achieved, but how I have discharged the 
common charities of life. Sins of commission 
in that awful indictment are not even referred 
to. By what we have not done, by sins of omis- 
sion, we are judgedc It could not be otherwise. 
For the withholding of love is the negation of 
the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never 
knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It 
means that He suggested nothing in all oui 
thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our 
lives, that we were not once near enough to 
Him to be seized with the spell of His compas 
sion for the world. It 'means that— 



/J23 



IN THE WORLD. 63 

j* — ■ — — ■— * 

" I lived for myself, I thought for myself 
For myselfj and none beside— 
Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
As if He had never died," 

It is the Son of Man before whom the 
nations of the world shall be gathered. It is 
in the presence of Humanity that we shall 
be charged. And the spectacle itself, the 
mere sight of it, will silently judge each onf\ 
Those will be there whom we have met and 
helped ; or there, the unpitied multitude whom 
we neglected or despised. No other Witness 
need be summoned. No other charge than love- 
lessness shall be preferred. Be not deceived. 
The words which all of us shall one Day hear 
sound not of theology but of life, not of churches 
and saints but of the hungry and the poor, not 
of creeds and doctrines but of shelter and 
clothing, not of Bibles and prayer-books but of 



04 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD, 

cups of cold water in the name of Christ 
Thank God the Christianity of to-day is coming 
nearer the world's need. Live to help that on, 
Thank God men know better, by a hairsbreadth, 
what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, 
where Christ is. Who is Christ ? He who fed 
the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. 
And where is Christ ? Where ? — whoso shall 
receive a little child in My name receiveth Me, 
A.nd who are Christ's ? Every one that loveti 
is born of God. 



ia.S 



PAX VOBISCUM 



Copyright, 1890, bv 
JAMES POTT & C(h 



"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn 
of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find 
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden 
is light." 



/n 




PAX VOBISCUM. 

I HEARD the other morning a sermon by a 
distinguished preacher upon " Rest." It was 
full of beautiful thoughts ; but when I came 
to ask myself, " How does he say I can get 
Rest?" there was no answer. The sermon 
was sincerely meant to be practical, yet it con- 
tained no experience that seemed to me to be 
tangible, nor any advice which could help me 
to find the thing itself as I went about the 
world that afternoon. Yet this omission of the 
only important problem was not the fault of 
the preacher. The whole popular religion is 



12 PAX VOBISCUM. 

in the twilight here. And when pressed for 
really working specifics for the experiences 
with which it deals, it falters, and seems to 
lose itself in mist. 

The want of connection between the great 
words of religion and every-day life has be- 
wildered and discouraged all of us. Chris- 
tianity possesses the noblest words in the 
language ; its literature overflows with terms 
expressive of the greatest and happiest moods 
which can fill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, 
Peace, Faith, Love, Light — these words occur 
with such persistency in hymns and prayers 
that an observer might think they formed 
the staple of Christian experience. But on 
coming to close quarters with the actual life 
of most of us, how surely would he be dis- 
enchanted. I do not think we ourselves are 
aware how much our religious life is made up 



/3\ 



PEACE BE WITH YOU. 1 3 

of phrases ; how much of what we call Christian 
experience is only a dialect of the Churches, 
a mere religious phraseology with almost 
nothing behind it in what we really feel and 
know. 

To some of us, indeed, the Christian ex- 
periences seem further away than when we 
took the first steps in the Christian life. That 
life has not opened out as we had hoped ; we 
do not regret our religion, but we are dis- 
appointed with it. There are times, perhaps, 
when wandering notes from a diviner music 
stray into our spirits ; but these experiences 
come at few r and fitful moments. We have no 
sense of possession in them. When they visit 
us, it is a surprise. When they leave us, 
it is without explanation. When we wish 
their return, we do not know how to secure 
it. 



14 PAX VOBISCUM. 

All which points to a religion without solid 
base, and a poor and flickering life. It means 
a great bankruptcy in those experiences which 
give Christianity its personal solace and make 
it attractive to the world, and a great uncer- 
tainty as to any remedy. It is as if we knew 
everything about health — except the way to 
get it. 

I am quite sure that the difficulty does not 
lie in the fact that men are not in earnest. 
This is simply not the fact. All around us 
Christians are wearing themselves out in try- 
ing to be better. The amount of spiritual 
longing in the world — in the hearts of un- 
numbered thousands of men and women in 
whom we should never suspect it ; among the 
wise and thoughtful ; among the young and 
gay, who seldom assuage and never betray 
their thirst — this is one of the most wonderful 



/3^ 



PEACE BE WITH YOU. 1$ 

and touching facts of life. It is not more 
heat that is needed, but more light ; not more 
force, but a wiser direction to be given to 
very real energies already there. 

The Address which follows is offered as a 
humble contribution to this problem, and in 
the hope that it may help some who are 
" seeking Rest and finding none" to a firmer 
footing on one great, solid, simple principle 
which underlies not the Christian experiences 
alone, but all experiences, and all life. 

What Christian experience wants is thread, 
a vertebral column, method. It is impossible 
to believe that there is no remedy for its 
unevenness and dishevelment, or that the 
remedy is a secret. The idea, also, that some 
few men, by happy chance or happier tem- 
perament, have been given the secret — as if 
there were some sort of knack or trick of it — 



l6 PAX VOBISCUM. 

is wholly incredible. Religion must ripen its 
fruit for every temperament ; and the way 
even into its highest heights must be by a 
gateway through which the peoples of the 
world may pass. 

I shall try to lead up to this gateway by 
a very familiar path. But as that path is 
strangely unfrequented, and even unknown, 
where it passes into the religious sphere, I 
must dwell for a moment on the commonest 
of commonplaces. 




)** 




EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 

NOTHING that happens in the world hap* 
pens by chance. God is a God of order. 
Everything is arranged upon definite prin- 
ciples, and never at random. The world, even 
the religious world, is governed by law. 
Character is governed by law. Happiness is 
governed by law. The Christian experiences 
are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, 
expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into 
their souls from the air like snow or rain. But 
in point of fact they do not do so ; and if 
they did they would no less have their origin 
in previous activities and be controlled by 

2 



PAX VOBISCUM. 



natural laws. Rain and snow do drop from 
the air, but not without a long previous 
history. They are the mature effects of for- 
mer causes. Equally so are Rest, and Peace, 
and Joy. They, too, have each a previous 
history. Storms and winds and calms are not 
accidents, but are brought about by ante- 
cedent circumstances. Rest and Peace are 
but calms in man's inward nature, and arise 
through causes as definite and as inevitable. 

Realize it thoroughly : it is a methodical 
not an accidental world. If a housewife 
turns out a good cake, it is the result of a 
sound receipt, carefully applied. She cannot 
mix the assigned ingredients and fire them 
for the appropriate time without producing 
the result. It is not she who has made the 
cake ; it is nature. She brings related things 
together ; sets causes at work ; these causes 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 19 



bring about the result. She is not a creator, 
but an intermediary. She does not expect 
random causes to produce specific effects 
— random ingredients would only produce 
random cakes. So it is in the making of 
Christian experiences. Certain lines are fol- 
lowed ; certain effects are the result. These 
effects cannot but be the result. But the 
result can never take place without the pre- 
vious cause. To expect results without ante- 
cedents is to expect cakes without ingredients. 
That impossibility is precisely the almost 
universal expectation. 

Now what I mainly wish to do is to help 
you firmly to grasp this simple principle of 
Cause and Effect in the spiritual world. 
And instead of applying the principle gen- 
erally to each of the Christian experiences 
in turn, I shall examine its application to 



20 PAX VOBISCUM. 

one in some little detail. The one I shall 
select is Rest. And I think any one who 
follows the application in this single instance 
will be able to apply it for himself to all the 
others. 

Take such a sentence as this : African 
explorers are subject to fevers which cause 
restlessness and delirium. Note the expres- 
sion, " cause restlessness." Restlessness has a 
cause. Clearly, then, any one who wished to 
get rid of restlessness would proceed at once 
to deal with the cause. If that were not 
removed, a doctor might prescribe a hundred 
things, and all might be taken in turn, with- 
out producing the least effect. Things are so 
arranged in the original planning of the world 
that certain effects must follow certain causes, 
and certain causes must be abolished before 
certain effects can be removed. Certain parts 



31 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 21 

of Africa are inseparably linked with the 
physical experience called fever ; this fever 
is in turn infallibly linked with a mental 
experience called restlessness and delirium. 
To abolish the mental experience the radical 
method would be to abolish the physical 
experience, and the way of abolishing the 
physical experience would be to abolish 
Africa, or to cease to go there. Now this 
holds good for all other forms of Restless, 
ness. Every other form and kind of Rest- 
lessness in the world has a definite cause, 
and the particular kind of Restlessness can 
only be removed by removing the allotted 
cause. 

All this is also true of Rest. Restlessness 
has a cause : must not Rest have a cause ? 
Necessarily. If it were a chance world we 
would not expect this ; but, being a methodi* 



22 PAX VOBISCUM. 

cal world, it cannot be otherwise. Rest, 
physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every 
kind of rest has a cause, as certainly as rest- 
lessness. Now causes are discriminating. 
There is one kind of cause for every particu- 
lar effect, and no other ; and if one particular, 
effect is desired, the corresponding cause must 
be set in motion. It is no use proposing 
finely devised schemes, or going through 
general pious exercises in the hope that some- 
how Rest will come. The Christian life is not 
casual but causal. All nature is a standing 
protest against the absurdity of expecting to 
secure spiritual effects, or any effects, without 
the employment of appropriate causes. The 
Great Teacher dealt what ought to have been 
the final blow to this infinite irrelevancy by a 
single question, " Do men gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles ? " 



H 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 23 

Why, then, did the Great Teacher not 
educate His followers fully ? Why did He 
not tell us, for example, how such a thing 
as Rest might be obtained ? The answer 
is, that He did. But plainly, explicitly, in 
so many words ? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in 
so many words. He assigned Rest to its 
cause, in words with which each of us has 
been familiar from his earliest childhood. 

He begins, you remember — for you at 
once know the passage I refer to — almost 
as if Rest could be had without any cause : 
" Come unto me," He says, " and I will give 
you Rest/' 

Rest, apparently, was a favour to be be- 
stowed ; men had but to come to Him ; He 
would give it to every applicant. But the 
next sentence takes that all back. The 
qualification, indeed, is added instantane* 



24 PAX VOBISCUM. 

ously. For what the first sentence seemed 
to give was next thing to an impossibility. 
For how, in a literal sense, can Rest be 
given ? One could no more give away Rest 
than he could give away Laughter. We 
speak of " causing " laughter, which we can 
do ; but we cannot give it away. When we 
speak of giving pain, we know perfectly 
well we cannot give pain away. And when 
we aim at giving pleasure, all that we do 
is to arrange a set of circumstances in such 
a way as that these shall cause pleasure. 
Of course there is a sense, and a very won- 
derful sense, in which a Great Personality 
breathes upon all who come within its influ- 
ence an abiding peace and trust. Men can 
be to other men as the shadow of a great rock 
in a thirsty land. Much more Christ ; much 
more Christ as Perfect Man ; much more still 



\V 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 25 

as Saviour of the world. But it is not this of 
which I speak. When Christ said He would 
give men Rest, He meant simply that He 
would put them in the way of it. By no act 
of conveyance would, or could, He make over 
His own Rest to them. He could give 
them His receipt for it. That was all. But 
He would not make it for them ; for one 
thing, it was not in His plan to make it 
for them ; for another thing, men were not 
so planned that it could be made for 
them ; and for yet another thing, it was a 
thousand times better that they should 
make it for themselves. 

That this is the meaning becomes obvious 
from the wording of the second sentence : 
" Learn of Me and ye shall find Rest." Rest, 
that is to say, is not a thing that can be given, 
but a thing to be acquired. It comes not by 



26 PAX VOBISCUM. 

an act, but by a process. It is not to be found 
in a happy hour, as one finds a treasure ; but 
slowly, as one finds knowledge. It could 
indeed be no more found in a moment than 
could knowledge. A soil has to be prepared 
for it. Like a fine fruit, it will grow in one 
climate and not in another ; at one altitude 
and not at another. Like all growths it will 
have an orderly development and mature by 
slow degrees. 

The nature of this slow process Christ 
clearly defines when He says we are to achieve 
Rest by learning. " Learn of Me," He says, 
" and ye shall find rest to your souls." Now 
consider the extraordinary originality of this 
utterance. How novel the connection be- 
tween these two words, " Learn " and " Rest "? 
How few of us have ever associated them — . 
ever thought that Rest was a thing to be 






EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 



learned ; ever laid ourselves out for it as we 
would to learn a language; ever practised it 
as we would practise the violin ? Does it not 
show how entirely new Christ's teaching still 
is to the world, that so old and threadbare an 
aphorism should still be so little applied? The 
last thing most of us- would have thought of 
would have been to associate Rest with Work. 
What must one work at ? What is that 
which if duly learned will find the soul of man 
in Rest? Christ answers without the least 
hesitation. He specifies two things — Meek- 
ness and Lowliness. " Learn of Me/' He says, 
" for I am meek and lowly in heart." Now 
these two things are not chosen at random. 
To these accomplishments, in a special way, 
Rest is attached. Learn these, in short, and 
you have already found Rest. These as they 
stand are direct causes of Rest ; will produce 



28 PAX VOBISCUM. 



it at once; cannot but produce it at once. 
And if you think for a single moment, you 
will see how this is necessarily so, for causes 
are never arbitrary, and the connection be- 
tween antecedent and consequent here and 
everywhere lies deep in the nature of things. 

What is the connection, then? I answer 
by a further question. What are the chief 
causes of Unrest? If you know yourself, you 
will answer Pride, Selfishness, Ambition. As 
you look back upon the past years of your 
life, is it not true that its unhappiness has 
chiefly come from the succession of personal 
mortifications and almost trivial disappoint- 
ments which the intercourse of life has 
brought you? Great trials come at length- 
ened intervals, and we rise to breast them*, 
but it is the petty friction of our every-day 
life with one another, the jar of business or of 



W7 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 29 

work, the discord of the domestic circle, the 
collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our 
will or the taking down of our conceit, which 
make inward peace impossible. Wounded 
vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied 
selfishness — these are the old, vulgar, univer- 
sal sources of man's unrest. 

Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out 
as the two chief objects for attainment the 
exact opposites of these. To Meekness and 
Lowliness these things simply do not exist. 
They cure unrest by making it impossible. 
These remedies do not trifle with surface 
symptoms; they strike at once at removing 
causes, The ceaseless chagrin of a self-centred 
life can be removed at once by learning Meek- 
ness and Lowliness of heart. He who learns 
them is forever proof against it. He lives 
henceforth a charmed life. Christianity is a 



30 PAX VOBISCUM. 

fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood 
into an anaemic or poisoned soul. No fever 
can attack a perfectly sound body ; no fever of 
unrest can disturb a soul which has breathed 
the air or learned the ways of Christ. Men 
sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly 
away and be at Rest. But flying away will not 
help us. " The Kingdom of God is within you" 
We aspire to the top to look for Rest ; it lies 
at the bottom. Water rests only when it gets 
to the lowest place. So do men. Hence, be 
lowly. The man who has no opinion of him- 
self at all can never be hurt if others do not 
acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. He who 
is without expectation cannot fret if nothing 
comes to him. It is self-evident that these 
things are so. The lowly man and the meek 
man are really above all other men, above all 
other things. They dominate the world be- 



m 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 3 1 

cause they do not care for it. The miser does 
not possess gold, gold possesses him. But the 
meek possess it. " The meek/' said Christ, 
" inherit the earth. " They do not buy it ; 
they do not conquer it ; but they inherit it. 

There are people who go about the world 
looking out for slights, and they are neces- 
sarily miserable, for they find them at every 
turn — especially the imaginary ones. One 
has the same pity for such men as for the very 
poor. They are the morally illiterate. They 
have had no real education, for they have 
never learned how to live. Few men know 
how to live. We grow up at random, carrying 
into mature life the merely animal methods 
and motives which we had as little children. 
And it does not occur to us that all this must 
be changed ; that much of it must be reversed: 
that life is the finest of the Fine Arts ; that it 



32 PAX VOBISCUM. 



has to be learned with lifelong patience, and 
that the years of our pilgrimage are all too 
short to master it triumphantly. 

Yet this is what Christianity is for — to 
teach men the Art of Life. And its whole 
curriculum lies in one word — " Learn of me." 
Unlike most education, this is almost purely 
personal ; it is not to be had from books or 
lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study 
from the life. Christ never said much in mere 
words about the Christian graces. He lived 
them, He was them. Yet we do not merely 
copy Him. We learn His art by living with 
Him, like the old apprentices with their mas- 
ters. 

Now we understand it all ? Christ's invita- 
tion to the weary and heavy-laden is a call to 
begin life over again upon a new principle — 
upon His own principle. " Watch My way of 






EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 33 



doing things/* He says. " Follow Me. Take 
life as I take it. Be meek and lowly and you 
will find Rest." 

I do not say, remember, that the Christian 
life to every man, or to any man, can be a 
bed of roses. No educational process can 
be this. And perhaps if some men knew 
how much was involved in the simple " learn " 
of Christ, they would not enter His school 
with so irresponsible a heart. For there is not 
only much to learn, but much to unlearn. 
Many men never go to this school at all till 
their disposition is already half ruined and 
character has taken on its fatal set. To learn 
arithmetic is difficult at fifty — much more to 
learn Christianity. To learn simply what it is 
to be meek and lowly, in the case of one who 
has had no lessons in that in childhood, may 
cost him half of what he values most on earth, 

3 



34 PAX VOBISCUM. 



Do we realize, for instance, that the way of 
teaching humility is generally by humiliation ? 
There is probably no other school for it. 
When a man enters himself as a pupil in such 
a school it means a very great thing. There 
is much Rest there, but there is also much 
Work. 

I should be wrong, even though my theme 
is the brighter side, to ignore the cross and 
minimise the cost. Only it gives to the cross 
a more definite meaning, and a rarer value, to 
connect it thus directly and causally with the 
growth of the inner life. Our platitudes 
on the " benefits of affliction " are usually 
about as vague as our theories of Christian 
Experience. " Somehow,'* we believe afflic- 
tion does us good. But it is not a question of 
" Somehow/' The result is definite, calcu- 
lable, necessary. It is under the strictest law 



,o 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 35 

of cause and effect. The first effect of losing 
one's fortune, for instance, is humiliation ; 
and the effect of humiliation, as we have just 
seen, is to make one humble ; and the effect 
of being humble is to produce Rest. It is 
a roundabout way, apparently, of producing 
Rest; but Nature generally works by circu- 
lar processes ; and it is not certain that there 
is any other way of becoming humble, or of 
finding Rest. If a man could make himself 
humble to order, it might simplify matters, 
but we do not find that this happens. Hence 
we must all go through the mill. Hence 
death, death to the lower self, is the nearest 
gate and the quickest road to life. 

Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life 
outwardly was one of the most troubled lives 
that was ever lived : Tempest and tumult, 
tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over 



36 PAX VOBISCUM. 

it all the time till the worn body was laid in the 
grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. 
The great calm was always there. At any 
moment you might have gone to Him and 
found Rest. And even when the blood- 
hounds were dogging him in the streets of 
Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and 
offered them, as a last legacy, " My peace/' 
Nothing ever for a moment broke the serenity 
of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could 
not reach Him ; He had no fortune. Food, 
raiment, money — fountain-heads of half the 
world's weariness — He simply did not care 
for; they played no part in His life; He 
" took no thought " for them. It was impos- 
sible to affect Him by lowering His reputation ; 
He had already made Himself of no reputation. 
He was dumb before insult. When He was 
reviled He reviled not again. In fact, there 



I** 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 37 

was nothing that the world could do to Him 
that could ruffle the surface of His spirit. 

Such living, as mere living, is altogether 
unique. It is only when we see what it was 
in Him that we can know what the word Rest 
means. It lies not in emotions, nor in the 
absence of emotions. It is not a hallowed 
feeling that comes over us in church. It is 
not something that the preacher has in his 
voice. It is not in nature, or in poetry, or 
in music — though in all these there is sooth- 
ing. It is the mind at leisure from itself. 
It is the perfect poise of the soul ; the abso- 
lute adjustment of the inward man to the 
stress of all outward things ; the prepared- 
ness against every emergency ; the stability 
of assured convictions ; the eternal calm of an 
invulnerable faith ; the repose of a heart set 
deep in God. It is the mood of the man who 



38 PAX VOBISCUM. 



says, with Browning, " God's in His Heaven, 
all's well with the world. " 

Two painters each painted a picture to 
illustrate his conception of rest. The first 
chose for his scene a still, lone lake among 
the far-off mountains. The second threw on 
his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fra- 
gile birch-tree bending over the foam ; at the 
fork of a branch, almost wet with the cata- 
ract's spray, a robin sat on its nest. The first 
was only Stagnation ; the last was Rest. For 
in Rest there are always two elements — 
tranquillity and energy ; silence and turbu- 
lence ; creation and destruction ; fearlessness 
and fearfulness. This it was in Christ. 

It is quite plain from all this that whatever 
else He claimed to be or to do, He at least 
knew how to live. All this is the perfection 
of living, of living in the mere sense of passing 



n 



EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES. 39 



through the world in the best way. Hence 
His anxiety to communicate His idea of life 
to others. He came, He said, to give men 
life, true life, a more abundant life than they 
were living ; " the life," as the fine phrase in 
the Revised Version has it, " that is life 
indeed/' This is what He himself possessed, 
and it was this which He offers to all man- 
kind. And hence His direct appeal for all to 
come to Him who had not made much of life, 
who were weary and heavy-laden. These He 
would teach His secret. They, also, should 
know "the life that is life indeed." 




-» 




WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 

There is still one doubt to clear up. After 
the statement, " Learn of Me/' Christ throws in 
the disconcerting qualification, " Take My yoke 
upon you and learn of Me/' Why, if all this 
be true, does He call it a yoke ? Why, while 
professing to give Rest, does He with the next 
breath whisper " burden " ? Is the Christian 
life, after all, what its enemies take it for — an 
additional weight to the already great woe of 
life, some extra punctiliousness about duty, 
some painful devotion to observances, some 
heavy restriction and trammelling of all that is 
joyous and free in the world ? Is life not hard 



\*1 



WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 41 

and sorrowful enough without being fettered 
with yet another yoke ? 

It is astounding how so glaring a misunder- 
standing of this plain sentence should ever 
have passed into currency. Did you ever stop 
to ask what a yoke is really for ? Is it to be a 
burden to the animal which wears it? It is 
just the opposite. It is to make its burden 
light. Attached to the oxen in any other way 
than by a yoke, the plough would be intoler- 
able. Worked by means of a yoke, it is light. 
A yoke is not an instrument of torture ; it is an 
instrument of mercy. It is not a malicious 
contrivance for making work hard ; it is a 
gentle device to make hard labour light. It is 
not meant to give pain, but to save pain. And 
yet men speak of the yoke of Christ as if it 
were a slavery, and look upon those who wear 
it as objects of compassion. For generations 



42 PAX VOBISCUM. 

we have had homilies on " The Yoke of 
Christ," some delighting in portraying its nar- 
row exactions ; some seeking in these exactions 
the marks of its divinity ; others apologising for 
it, and toning it down ; still others assuring 
us that, although it be very bad, it is not to 
be compared with the positive blessings of 
Christianity. How many, especially among 
the young, has this one mistaken phrase 
driven forever away from the kingdom of God ? 
Instead of making Christ attractive, it makes 
Him out a taskmaster, narrowing life by petty 
restrictions, calling for self-denial where none is 
necessary, making misery a virtue under the 
plea that it is the yoke of Christ, and happi- 
ness criminal because it now and then evades 
it. According to this conception, Christians 
are at best the victims of a depressing fate ; 
their life is a penance ; and their hope for the 



What yokes are for. 43 



next world purchased by a slow martyrdom in 
this. 

The mistake has arisen from taking the 
word " yoke " here in the same sense as in the 
expressions " under the yoke/' or " wear the 
yoke in his youth." But in Christ's illustration 
it is not the jugum of the Roman soldier, but 
the simple " harness " or " ox-collar " of the 
Eastern peasant. It is the literal wooden yoke 
which He, with His own hands in the carpenter 
shop, had probably often made. 'He knew the 
difference between a smooth yoke and a rough 
one, a bad fit and a good fit ; the difference 
also it made to the patient animal which had 
to wear it. The rough yoke galled, and the 
burden was heavy ; the smooth yoke caused 
no pain, and the load was lightly drawn. The 
badly fitted harness was a misery ; the well- 
fitted collar was " easy." 



44 p AX VOBISCUM. 

And what was the " burden " ? It was not 
some special burden laid upon the Christian, 
some unique infliction that they alone must 
bear. It was what all men bear. It was sim- 
ply life, human life itself, the general burden 
of life which all must carry with them from 
the cradle to the grave. Christ saw that men 
took life painfully. To some it was a weari- 
ness, to others a failure, to many a tragedy, to 
all a struggle and a pain. How to carry this 
burden of life had been the whole world's 
problem. It is still the whole world's prob- 
lem. And here is Christ's solution : " Carry it 
as I do. Take life as I take it. Look at it 
from My point of view. Interpret it upon My 
principles. Take My yoke and learn of Me, 
and you will find it easy. For My yoke is 
easy, works easily, sits right upon the shoul- 
ders, and therefore My burden is light." 



(,3 



WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 45 

There is no suggestion here that religion 
will absolve any man from bearing burdens. 
That would be to absolve him from living, 
since it is life itself that is the burden. 
What Christianity does propose is to make 
it tolerable. Christ's yoke is simply His 
secret for the alleviation of human life, His 
prescription for the best and happiest 
method of living. Men harness themselves 
to the work and stress of the world in clumsy 
and unnatural ways. The harness they put 
on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fitted collar 
at the best, they make its strain and friction 
past enduring, by placing it where the neck 
is most sensitive ; and by mere continuous 
irritation this sensitiveness increases until 
the whole nature is quick and sore. 

This is the origin, among other things, of a 
disease called " touchiness " — a disease which, 



46 PAX VOBISCUM. 

in spite of its innocent name, is one of the 
gravest sources of restlessness in the world. 
Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a 
morbid condition of the inward disposition. 
It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; 
conceit, with a hair-trigger. The cure is to 
shift the yoke to some other place ; to let men 
and things touch us through some new and 
perhaps as yet unused part of our nature ; to 
become meek and lowly in heart while the 
old nature is becoming numb from want of 
use. It is the beautiful work of Christianity 
everywhere to adjust the burden of life to 
those who bear it, and them to it. It has a 
perfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without 
doing any violence to human nature it sets it 
right with life, harmonizing it with all sur- 
rounding things, and restoring those who are 
jaded with the fatigue and dust of the world to 



WHAT YOKES ARE FOR. 47 

a new grace of living. In the mere matter of 
altering the perspective of life and changing 
the proportions of things, its function in light- 
ening the care of man is altogether its own. 
The weight of a load depends upon the at- 
traction of the earth. But suppose the attrac- 
tion of the earth were removed ? A ton on some 
other planet, where the attraction of gravity is 
less, does not weigh half a ton. Now Chris- 
tianity removes the attraction of the earth ; 
and this is one way in which it diminishes 
men's burden. It makes them citizens of an- 
other world. What was a ton yesterday is not 
half a ton to-day. So without changing one's 
circumstances, merely by offering a wider 
horizon and a different standard, it alters the 
whole aspect of the world. 

Christianity as Christ taught is the truest 
philosophy of life ever spoken. But let us be 



48 PAX VOBISCUM. 

quite sure when we speak of Christianity that 
we mean Christ's Christianity. Other versions 
are either caricatures, or exaggerations, or 
misunderstandings, or shortsighted and sur- 
face readings. For the most part their attain- 
ment is hopeless and the results wretched. 
But I care not who the person is, or through 
what vale of tears he has passed, or is about to 
pass, there is a new life for him along this 
path. 




M 




HOW FRUITS GROW. 

WERE Rest my subject, there are other 
things I should wish to say about it, and other 
kinds of Rest of which I should like to speak. 
But that is not my subject. My theme is that 
the Christian experiences are not the work of 
magic, but come under the law of Cause and 
Effect. And I have chosen Rest only as a 
single illustration of the working of that prin- 
ciple. If there were time I might next run 
over all the Christian experiences in turn, and 
show how the same wide law applies to each. 
But I think it may serve the better purpose if 

I leave this further exercise to yourselves. 1 
4 



SO PAX VOBISCUM. 

know no Bible study that you will find more 
full of fruit, or which will take you nearer to 
the ways of God, or make the Christian life 
itself more solid or more sure. I shall add 
only a single other illustration of what I mean, 
before I close. 

Where does Joy come from ? I knew a 
Sunday scholar whose conception of Joy was 
that it was a thing made in lumps and kept 
somewhere in Heaven, and that when people 
prayed for it, pieces were somehow let down 
and fitted into their souls. I am not sure 
that views as gross and material are not often 
held by people who ought to be wiser. In 
reality, Joy is as much a* matter of Cause and 
Effect as pain. No one can get Joy by merely 
asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of 
the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be 
grown. There is a very clever trick in India 



m 



HOW FRUITS GROW. 5 1 

called the mango-trick. A seed is put in the 
ground and covered up, and after divers in- 
cantations a full-blown mango-bush appears 
within five minutes. I never met any one who 
knew how the thing was done, but I never 
met any one who believed it to be anything 
else than a conjuring-trick. The world is 
pretty unanimous now in its belief in the order- 
liness of Nature. Men may not know how 
fruits grow, but they do know that they can- 
not grow in five minutes. Some lives have not 
even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even 
if they did grow in five minutes. Some have 
never planted one sound seed of Joy in all 
their lives ; and others who may have planted 
a germ or two have lived so little in sunshine 
that they never could come to maturity. 

Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teach- 
ing upon this subject into one of the most 



52 PAX VOBISCUM. 

exquisite of His parables. I should in any 
instance have appealed to His teaching here, 
as in the case of Rest, for I do not wish you 
to think I am speaking words of my own. But 
it so happens that He has dealt with it in 
words of unusual fulness. 

I need not recall the whole illustration. It 
is the parable of the Vine. Did you ever 
think why Christ spoke that parable? He did 
not merely throw it into space as a fine illus- 
tratipn of general truths. It was not simply a 
statement of the mystical union, and the doc^ 
trine of an indwelling Christ. It was that ; but 
it was more. After He had said it, He did 
what was not an unusual thing when He was 
teaching His greatest lessons. He turned to 
the disciples and said He would tell them why 
He had spoken it. It was to tell them how to 
get Joy. " These things have I spoken unto 



w 

HOW FRUITS GROW. 53 

you," He said, " that My Joy might remain 
in you and that your Joy might be full." It 
was a purposed and deliberate communication 
of His secret of Happiness. 

Go back over these verses, then, and you 
will find the Causes of this Effect, the spring, 
and the only spring, out of which true Happi- 
ness comes. I am not going to analyse them 
in detail. I ask you to enter into the words 
for yourselves. Remember, in the first place, 
that the Vine was the Eastern symbol of Joy. 
It was its fruit that made glad the heart of 
man. Yet, however innocent that gladness — 
for the expressed juice of the grape was the 
common drink at every peasant's board — the 
gladness was only a gross and passing thing. 
This was not true happiness, and the vine 
of the Palestine vineyards was not the true 
vine. Christ was " the true Vine." Here, 



54 pax VOBISCUM. 

then, is the ultimate source of Joy. Through 
whatever media it reaches us, all true Joy and 
Gladness find their source in Christ. By this, 
of course, is not meant that the actual Joy 
experienced is transferred from Christ's nab 
ure, or is something passed on from Him to 
us. What is passed on is His method of 
getting it. There is, indeed, a sense in which 
we can share another's joy or another's sor- 
row. But that is another matter. Christ is 
the source of Joy to men in the sense in which 
He is the source of Rest. His people share 
His life, and therefore share its consequences, 
and one of these is Joy. His method of living 
is one that in the nature of things produces 
Joy. When He spoke of His Joy remaining 
with us He meant in part that the causes 
which produced it should continue to act. 
His followers, that is to say, by repeating 



/ 73 



HOW FRUITS GROW. 55 

His life would experience its accompani- 
ments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would 
remain with them. 

The medium through which this Joy comes 
is next explained : " He that abideth in Me, 
the same bringeth forth much fruit." Fruit 
first, Joy next ; the one the cause or medium 
of the other. Fruit-bearing is the necessary 
antecedent ; Joy both the necessary conse- 
quent and the necessary accompaniment. It 
lay partly in the bearing fruit, partly in the 
fellowship which made that possible. Partly, 
that is to say, Joy lay in mere constant living 
in Christ's presence, with all that that implied 
of peace, of shelter, and of love ; partly in the 
influence of that Life upon mind and charac- 
ter and will ; and partly in the inspiration to 
live and work for others, with all that that 
brings of self-riddance and Joy in others' 



56 PAX VOBISCUM. 

gain. All these, in different ways and at dif* 
ferent times, are sources of pure Happiness 
Even the simplest of them — to do good to 
other people — is an instant and infallible spe- 
cific. There is no mystery about Happiness 
whatever. Put in the right ingredients and it 
must come out. He that abideth in Him will 
bring forth much fruit ; and bringing forth 
much fruit is Happiness. The infallible re- 
ceipt for Happiness, then, is to do good ; and 
the infallible receipt for doing good is to abide 
in Christ. The surest proof that all this is a 
plain matter of Cause and Effect is that men 
may try every other conceivable way of find- 
ing Happiness, and they will fail. Only the 
right cause in each case can produce the right 
effect. 

Then the Christian experiences are our 
own making? In the same sense in which 



/7> 

HOW FRUITS GROW. 57 

grapes are our own making, and no more. All 
fruits grow — whether they grow in the soil or 
in the soul ; whether they are the fruits of the 
wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can 
make things grow. He can get them to grow 
by arranging all the circumstances and fulfill- 
ing all the conditions. But the growing is 
done by God. Causes and effects are eternal 
arrangements, set in the constitution of the 
world ; fixed beyond man's ordering. What 
man can do is to place himself in the midst 
of a chain of sequences. Thus he can get 
things, to grow: thus he himself can grow. 
But the grower is the Spirit of God. 

What more need I add but this — test the 
method by experiment. Do not imagine that 
you have got these things because you know 
how to get them. As well try to feed upon a 
cookery book. But I think I can promise that 



58 PAX VOBISCUM. 

if you try in this simple and natural way, you 
will not fail. Spend the time you have spent 
in sighing for fruits in fulfilling the conditions 
of their growth. The fruits will come, must 
come. We have hitherto paid immense at- 
tention to effects, to the mere experiences 
themselves ; we have described them, extolled 
them, advised them, prayed for them — done 
everything but find out what caused them. 
Henceforth let us deal with causes. " To 
be/' says Lotze, " is to be in relations." 
About every other method of living the 
Christian life there is an uncertainty. About 
every other method of acquiring the Christian 
experiences there is a " perhaps." But in so 
far as this method is the way of nature, it can 
not fail. Its guarantee is the laws of the 
universe, and these are " the Hands of the 
Living God." 



/77 

THE TRUE VINE. 59 



THE TRUE VINE. 

"I AM the true vine, and my Father is the 
husbandman. Every branch in me that bear- 
eth not fruit he taketh away : and every 
branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that 
it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are 
clean through the word which I have spoken 
unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As 
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, ex- 
cept it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, 
except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye 
are the branches : He that abideth in me, 
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
fruit : for without me ye can do nothing. If 
a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as 
a branch, and is withered ; and men gather 
them, and cast them into the fire, and they 
are burned. If ye abide in me, and my 
word abide in you, ye shall ask what ye 
will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein 



6o PAX VOBISCUM. 

is my Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit ; so ye shall be my disciples. As the 
Father hath loved me, so have I loved 
you : continue ye in my love. If ye keep 
my commandments, ye shall abide in my 
love ; even as I have kept my Father's 
commandments, and abide in his love. These 
things have I spoken unto you, that my 
joy might remain in you, and that your joy 
might be full." 



(7? 



THE CHANGED LIFE 



Copyright, 1891, by 
JAMES POTT & CO. 



lit 



PREFACE. 

Last autumn, in a book-shop in California, the author 
found a little book with his name upon the title-page — a 
book which he did not know existed ; which he never 
wrote ; nor baptized with the title which it bore. This 
stray publication — taken from shorthand notes of a spoken 
Address — he does not grudge. Already, it seems, it has 
done its small measure of good. But, owing to the im- 
perfections which it contains, it has been thought right to 
issue a more complete edition. 

The theme, like its predecessors in this series, represents 
but a single aspect of its great subject — the man- ward 
side. The light and shade is apportioned with this in 
view. And the reader's kind attention is asked to this 
limitation, lest he wonder at points being left in shadow 
which theology has always, and rightly, taught us to em- 
phasize. 

It was the hearing of a simple talk by a friend to some 
plain people in a Highland deer-forest which first called 
the author's attention to the practicalness of this solution 
of the cardinal problem of Christian experience. What 
follows owes a large debt to that Sunday morning. 



1*3 



me . all 

WLttb . um>eile& . face 

IReflectfna 

Me . a . dftfrror 

Gbe . (Blors . of*, tbe . ILorD 

&re . transformed 

Unto . tbe . aame . image 

jfrom . <3lor£ . to . (Blotis 

JEven . as . from . tbe . XorD 

Zbe . Spirit 



**' 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 

" I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me 
always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of 
being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning, I 
should instantly close with the offer." 

These are the words of Mr. Huxley. The infinite de- 
sirability, the infinite difficulty of being good — the theme 
is as old as humanity. The man does not live from whose 
deeper being the same confession has not risen, or who 
would not give his all to-morrow, if he could " close with 
the offer " of becoming a better man. 

I propose to make that offer now. In all seriousness, 
without being " turned into a sort of clock," the end can 
be attained. Under the right conditions it is as natural 
for character to become beautiful as for a flower ; and if 
on God's earth there is not some machinery for effecting 
it, the supreme gift to the world has been forgotten. This 
is simply what man was made for. With Browning : "I 
say that Man was made to grow, not stop." Or in the 
deeper words of an older Book : " Whom He did fore- 
know, He also did predestinate . . . to be conformed 
to the Image of His Son." 

Let me begin by naming, and in part discarding, some 
processes in vogue already for producing better lives. 
These processes are far from wrong ; in their place they 
may even be essential. One ventures to disparage them 



b THE CHANGED LIFE. 

only because they do not turn out the most perfect possi- 
ble work. 

The first imperfect method is to rely on Resolution. 
In will-power, in mere spasms of earnestness there is no 
salvation. Struggle, effort, even agony, have their place 
in Christianity, as we shall see ; but this is not where they 
come in. In mid-Atlantic the other day, the Etruria, in 
which I was sailing, suddenly stopped. Something had 
gone wrong with the engines. There were five hundred 
able-bodied men on board the ship. Do you think if we 
had gathered together and pushed against the mast we 
could have pushed it on? When one attempts to sanctify 
himself by effort, he is trying to make his boat go by 
pushing against the mast. He is like a drowning man 
trying to lift himself out of the water by pulling at the 
hair of his own head. Christ held up this method almost 
to ridicule when He said, " Which of you by taking 
thought can add a cubit to his stature? " The one re- 
deeming feature of the self-sufficient method is this — that 
those who try it find out almost at once that it will not 
gain the goal. 

Another experimenter says : " But that is not my 
method. I have seen the folly of a mere wild struggle in 
the dark. I work on a principle. My plan is not to 
waste power on random effort, but to concentrate on a 
single sin. By taking one at a time, and crucifying it 
steadily, I hope in the end to extirpate all." To this, 
unfortunately, there are four objections : For one thing, 
life is too short ; the name of sin is Legion. For another 
thing, to deal with individual sins is to leave the rest of 
the nature for the time untouched. In the third place, a 
single combat with a special sin does not affect the root 



ISl 



THE CHANGED LIFE. 



and spring of the disease. If one only of the channels 
of sin be obstructed, experience points to an almost cer- 
tain overflow through some other part of the nature. 
Partial conversion is almost always accompanied by such 
moral leakage, for the pent-up energies accumulate to the 
bursting point, and the last state of that soul may be 
worse than the first. In the last place, religion does not 
consist in negatives, in stopping this sin and stopping 
that. The perfect character can never be produced with 
a pruning-knife. 

But a third protests : " So be it. I make no attempt 
to stop sins one by one. My method is just the opposite. 
I copy the virtues one by one." The difficulty about the 
copying method is that it is apt to be mechanical. One 
can always tell an engraving from a picture, an artificial 
flower from a real flower. To copy virtues one by one 
has somewhat the same effect as eradicating the vices one 
by one ; the temporary result is an overbalanced and in- 
congruous character. Some one defines a prig as "a 
creature that is over-fed for its size." One sometimes 
finds Christians of this species — over-fed on one side of 
their nature, but dismally thin and starved-looking on the 
other. The result, for instance, of copying Humility, and 
adding it on to an otherwise worldly life, is simply gro- 
tesque. A rabid Temperance advocate, for the same 
reason, is often the poorest of creatures, flourishing on a 
single virtue, and quite oblivious that his Temperance is 
making a worse man of him and not a better. These are 
examples of fine virtues spoiled by association with mean 
companions. Character is a unity, and all the virtues 
must advance together to make the perfect man. This 
method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true 



8 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

direction. It is only in the details of execution that it 
fails. 

A -fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it is a 
variation on those already named. It is the very young 
man's method ; and the pure earnestness of it makes it 
almost desecration to touch it. It is to keep a private 
note-book with columns for the days of the week, and a 
list of virtues with spaces against each for marks. This, 
with many stern rules for preface, is stored away in a se- 
cret place, and from time to time, at nightfall, the soul is 
arraigned before it as before a private judgment bar. 
This living by code was Franklin's method ; and I sup- 
pose thousands more could tell how they had hung up in 
their bedrooms, or hid in lock-fast drawers, the rules 
which one solemn day they drew up to shape their lives. 
This method is not erroneous, only somehow its success 
is poor. You bear me witness that it fails? And it fails 
generally for very matter-of-fact reasons — most likely be- 
cause one day we forget the rules. 

All these methods that have been named — the self-suffi- 
cient method, the self-crucifixion method, the mimetic 
method, and the diary method — are perfectly human, per- 
fectly natural, perfectly ignorant, and, as they stand, per- 
fectly inadequate. It is not argued, I repeat, that they 
must be abandoned. Their harm is rather that they dis- 
tract attention from the true working method, and secure 
a fair result at the expense of the perfect one. What 
that perfect method is we shall now go on to ask. 



/?1 



THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION. 

A formula, a receipt, for Sanctification — can one seri- 
ously speak of this mighty change as if the process were 
as definite as for the production of so many volts of elec- 
tricity? It is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical 
experiment succeed infallibly, and the one vital experiment 
of humanity remain a chance? Is corn to grow by 
method, and character by caprice? If we cannot calcu- 
late to a certainty that the forces of religion will do their 
work, then is religion vain. And if we cannot express the 
law of these forces in simple words, then is Christianity 
not the world's religion but the world's conundrum. 

Where, then, shall one look for such a formula? Where 
one would look for any formula — among the text-books. 
And if we turn to the text-books of Christianity we shall 
find a formula for this problem as clear and precise as 
any in the mechanical sciences. If this simple rule, more- 
over, be but followed fearlessly, it will yield the result of 
a perfect character as surely as any result that is guaran- 
teed by the laws of nature. The finest expression of this 
rule in Scripture, or indeed in any literature, is probably 
one drawn up and condensed into a single verse by Paul. 
You will find it in a letter — the second to the Corinthians 
— written by him to some Christian people who, in a city 
which was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, 
were seeking the higher life. To see the point of the 



10 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

words we must take them from the immensely improved 
rendering of the Revised translation, for the older Ver- 
sion in this case greatly obscures the sense. They are 
these : " We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror 
the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same im- 
age from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." 

Now observe at the outset the entire contradiction of 
all our previous efforts, in the simple passive " we are 
transformed." We are changed, as the Old Version has 
it — we do not change ourselves. No man can change 
himself. Throughout the New Testament you will find 
that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations 
are described the verbs are in the passive. Presently it 
will be pointed out that there is a rationale in this ; but 
meantime do not toss these words aside as if this passivity 
denied all human effort or ignored intelligible law. What 
is implied for the soul here is no more than is everywhere 
claimed for the body. In physiology the verj)s describ- 
ing the processes of growth are in the passive. Growth 
is not voluntary ; it takes place, it happens, it is wrought 
upon matter. So here. " Ye must be born again " — we 
cannot born ourselves. " Be not conformed to this world 
but be ye transformed' 1 — we are subjects to a transforming 
influence, we do not transform ourselves. Not more cer- 
tain is it that it is something outside the thermometer that 
produces a change in the thermometer, than it is some- 
thing outside the soul of man that produces a moral 
change upon him. That he must be susceptible to that 
change, that he must be a party to it, goes without say- 
ing ; but that neither his aptitude nor his will can produce 
it, is equally certain. 

Obvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an 



IV 



THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION. I I 

almost startling revelation. The change we have been 
striving after is not to be produced by any more striving 
after. It is to be wrought upon us by the moulding of 
hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the 
bud bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation 
of influences from the outside air, so man rises to the 
higher stature under invisible pressures from without. 
The radical defect of all our former methods of sanctifi- 
cation was the attempt to generate from within that which 
can only be wrought upon us from without. According 
to the first Law of Motion : Every body continues in its 
state of rest, or of uniform motion in a* straight line, ex- 
cept in so far as it may be compelled by impressed forces 
to change that state. This is also a first law of Christian- 
ity. Every man's character remains as it is, or continues 
in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled 
by impressed forces to change that state. Our failure has 
been the failure to put ourselves in the way of the im- 
pressed forces. There is a clay, and there is a Potter ; 
we have tried to get the clay to mould the clay. 

Whence, then, these pressures, and where this Potter? 
The answer of the formula is " By reflecting as a mirror 
the glory of the Lord we are changed." But this is not 
very clear. What is the " glory " of the Lord, and how 
can mortal man reflect it, and how can that act as an 
" impressed force" in moulding him to a nobler form? 
The word " glory " — the word which has to bear the 
weight of holding those " impressed forces " — is a stranger 
in current speech, and our first duty is to seek out its 
equivalent in working English. It suggests at first a radi- 
ance of some kind, something dazzling or glittering, some 
halo such as the old masters loved to paint round the 



12 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

heads of their Ecce Homos. But that is paint, mere 
matter, the visible symbol of some unseen thing. What 
is that unseen thing? It is that of all unseen things the 
most radiant, the most beautiful, the most Divine, and 
that is Character. On earth, in Heaven, there is nothing 
so great, so glorious as this. The word has many mean- 
ings ; in ethics it can have but one. Glory is character 
and nothing less, and it can be nothing more. The earth 
is " full of the glory of the Lord," because it is full of His 
character. The " Beauty of the Lord " is character. 
" The effulgence of His Glory " is character. " The 
Glory of the Only Begotten " is character, the character 
which is "fulness of grace and truth." And when God 
told His people His name He simply gave them His char- 
acter, His character which was Himself : " And the Lord 
proclaimed the Name of the Lord . . . the Lord, 
the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and 
abundant in goodness and truth." Glory then is not 
something intangible, or ghostly, or transcendental. If it 
were this how could Paul ask men to reflect it ? Stripped 
of its physical enswathement it is Beauty, moral and spir- 
itual Beauty, Beauty infinitely real, infinitely exalted, yet 
infinitely near and infinitely communicable. 

With this explanation read over the sentence once more 
in paraphrase : We all reflecting as a mirror the character 
of Christ are transformed into the same Image from char- 
acter to character — from a poor character to a better one, 
from a better one to one a little better still, from that to 
one still more complete, until by slow degrees the Perfect 
Image is attained. Here the solution of the problem of 
sanctification is compressed into a sentence : Reflect the 
character of Christ and you will become like Christ. 



THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFiCATION. 13 

All men are mirrors — that is the first law on which this 
formula is based. One of the aptest descriptions of a 
human being is that he is a mirror. As we sat at table 
to-night the world in which each of us lived and moved 
throughout this day was focussed in the room. What we 
saw as we looked at one another was not one another, 
but one another's world. We were an arrangement of 
mirrors. The scenes we saw were all reproduced ; the 
people we met walked to and fro ; they spoke, they 
bowed, they passed us by, did everything over again as if 
it had been real. When we talked, we were but looking 
at our own mirror and describing what flitted across it ; 
our listening was not hearing, but seeing — we but looked 
on our neighbour's mirror. All human intercourse is a 
seeing of reflections. I meet a stranger in a railway car- 
riage. The cadence of his first word tells me he is Eng- 
lish, and comes from Yorkshire. Without knowing it he 
has reflected his birthplace, his parents, and the long his- 
tory of their race. Even physiologically he is a mirror. 
His second sentence records that he is a politician, and a 
faint inflexion in the way he pronounces The Times re- 
veals his party. In his next remarks I see reflected a 
whole world of experiences. The books he has read, the 
people he has met, the influences that have played upon 
him and made him the man he is — these are all registered 
there by a pen which lets nothing pass, and whose writing 
can never be blotted out. What I am reading in him 
meantime he also is reading in me; and before the jour- 
ney is over we could half write each other's lives. 
Whether we like it or not, we live in glass houses. The 
mind, the memory, the soul, is simply a vast chamber 
panelled with looking-glass. And upon this miraculous 



14 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

arrangement and endowment depends the capacity of 
mortal souls to " reflect the character of the Lord." 

But this is not all. If all these varied reflections from 
our so-called secret life are patent to the world, how close 
the writing, how complete the record, within the soul it- 
self? For the influences we meet are not simply held for 
a moment on the polished surface and thrown off again 
into space. Each is retained where first it fell, and stored 
up in the soul forever. 

This law of Assimilation is the second, and by far the 
most impressive truth which underlies the formula of sanc- 
tiflcation — the truth that men are not only mirrors, but 
that these mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors of the 
fleeting things they see, transfer into their own inmost 
substance, and hold in permanent preservation, the things 
that they reflect. No one knows how the soul can hold 
these things. No one knows how the miracle is done. 
No phenomenon in nature, no process in chemistry, no 
chapter in necromancy can even help us to begin to un- 
derstand this amazing operation. For, think of it, the 
past is not only focussed there, in a man's soul, it is there. 
How could it be reflected from there if it were not there? 
All things that he has ever seen, known, felt, believed of 
the surrounding world are now within him, have become 
part of him, in part are him — he has been changed into 
their image. He may deny it, he may resent it, but they 
are there. They do not adhere to him, they are transfused 
through him. He cannot alter or rub them out. They 
are not in his memory, they are in him. His soul is as 
they have filled it, made it, left it. These things, these 
books, these events, these influences are his makers. In 
their hands are life and death, beauty and deformity. 



THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION. 1 5 

When once the image or likeness of any of these is fairly 
presented to the soul, no power on earth can hinder two 
things happening — it must be absorbed into the soul, and 
forever reflected back again from character. 

Upon these astounding yet perfectly obvious psycholog- 
ical facts, Paul bases his doctrine of sanctification. He 
sees that character is a thing built up by slow degrees, 
that it is hourly changing for better or for worse according 
to the images which flit across it. One step further and 
the whole length and breadth of the application of these 
ideas to the central problem of religion will stand before us. 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 

If events change men, much more persons. No man 
can meet another on the street without making some mark 
upon him. We say we exchange words when we meet ; 
what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse is very 
close and very frequent, so complete is this exchange that, 
recognisable bits of the one soul begin to show in the 
other's nature, and the second is conscious of a similar 
and growing debt to the first. This mysterious approxi- 
mating of two souls who has not witnessed? Who has 
not watched some old couple come down life's pilgrim- 
age hand in hand, with such gentle trust and joy in one 
another that their very faces wore the self-same look? 
These were not two souls ; it was a composite soul. It 
did not matter to which of the two you spoke, you would 
have said the same words to either. It was quite indiffer- 
ent which replied, each would have said the same. Half 
a century's reflecting had told upon them ; they were 
changed into the same image. It is the Law of Influence 
that we become like those whom we habitually admire: these 
had become like because they habitually admired. 
Through all the range of literature, of history, and biog- 
raphy this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other 
men. There was a savour of David about Jonathan and 
a savour of Jonathan about David. Jean Valjean, in the 
masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop Bienvenu risen 
from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact. George 
Eliot's message to the world was that men and women 
make men and women. The Family, the cradle of man- 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 1 7 

kind, has no meaning apart from this. Society itself is 
nothing but a rallying point for these omnipotent forces 
to do their work. On the doctrine of Influence, in short, 
the whole vast pyramid of humanity is built. 

But it was reserved for Paul to make the supreme ap- 
plication of the Law of Influence. It was a tremendous 
inference to make, but he never hesitated. He himself 
was a changed man ; he knew exactly what had done it ; 
it was Christ. On the Damascus road they met, and 
from that hour his life was absorbed in His. The effect 
could not but follow — on words, on deeds, on career, on 
creed. The "impressed forces" did their vital work. 
He became like Him Whom he habitually loved. " So 
we all," he writes, " reflecting as a mirror the glory of 
Christ, are changed into the same image.''' 

Nothing could be more simple, more intelligible, more 
natural, more supernatural. It is an analogy from an 
everyday fact. Since we are what we are by the impacts 
of those who surround us, those who surround themselves 
with the highest will be those who change into the high- 
est. There are some men and some women in whose 
company we are always at our best. While with them we 
cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. 
Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. 
All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their in- 
tercourse, and we find a music in our souls that was never 
there before. Suppose even that influence prolonged 
through a month, a year, a lifetime, and what could not 
life become? Here, even on the common plane of life, 
talking our language, walking our streets, working side 
by side, are sanctifiers of souls ; here, breathing through 
common clay, is Heaven ; here, energies charged even 



15 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

through a temporal medium with the virtue of regenera- 
tion. If to live with men, diluted to the millionth degree 
with the virtue of the Highest, can exalt and purify the 
nature, what bounds can be set to the influence of Christ? 
To live with Socrates — with unveiled face — must have 
made one wise ; with Aristides, just. Francis of Assisi 
must have made one gentle ; Savonarola, strong. But 
to have lived with Christ? To have lived with Christ 
must have made one like Christ ; that is to say, A Chris- 
tian. 

As a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce this 
effect. It produced it in the case of Paul. And during 
Christ's lifetime the experiment was tried in an even more 
startling form. A few raw unspiritual, uninspiring men, 
were admitted to the inner circle of His friendship. The 
change began at once. Day by day we can almost see 
the first disciples grow. First there steals over them the 
faintest possible adumbration of His character, and occa- 
sionally, very occasionally, they do a thing, or say a thing 
that they could not have done or said had they not been 
living there. Slowly the spell of His Life deepens. 
Reach after reach of their nature is overtaken, thawed, 
subjugated, sanctified. Their manners soften, their words 
become more gentle, their conduct more unselfish. As 
swallows who have found a summer, as frozen buds the 
spring, their starved humanity bursts into a fuller life. 
They do not know how it is, but they are different men. 
One day they find themselves like their Master, going 
about and doing good. To themselves it is unaccount- 
able, but they cannot do otherwise. They were not told 
to do it, it came to them to do it. But the people who 
watch them know well how to account for it — " They 



m 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 1 9 

have been," they whisper, " with Jesus." Already even, 
the mark and seal of His character is upon them — " They 
have been with Jesus." Unparalleled phenomenon, that 
these poor fishermen should remind other men of Christ! 
Stupendous victory and mystery of regeneration that mor- 
tal men should suggest to the world, God! 

There is something almost melting in the way His con- 
temporaries, and John especially, speak of the Influence 
of Christ. John lived himself in daily wonder at Him ; 
he was overpowered, overawed, entranced, transfigured. 
To his mind it was impossible for any one to come under 
this influence and ever be the same again. " Whosoever 
abideth in Him sinneth not," he said. It was inconceiv- 
able that he should sin, as inconceivable as that ice should 
live in a burning sun, or darkness coexist with noon. If 
any one did sin, it was to John the simple proof that he 
could never have met Christ. " Whosoever sinneth," he 
exclaims, " hath not seen Him, neither known Him." Sin 
was abashed in this Presence. Its roots withered. Its 
sway and victory were for ever at an end. 

But these were His contemporaries. It was easy for 
them to be influenced by Him, for they were every day 
and all the day together. But how can we mirror that 
which we have never seen? How can all this stupendous 
result be produced by a Memory, by the scantiest of all 
Biographies, by One who lived and left this earth eighteen 
hundred years ago? How can modern men to-day make 
Christ, the absent Christ, their most constant companion 
still? The answer is that Friendship is a spiritual thing. 
It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That 
which I love in my friend is not that which I see. What 
influences me in my friend is not his body but his spirit. 



20 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

It would have been an ineffable experience truly to have 
lived at that time — 

" I think when I read the sweet story of old, 
How when Jesus was here among men, 
He took little children like lambs to His 'fold, 
I should like to have been with Him then. 

" I wish that His hand had been laid on my head, 
That His arms had been thrown around me, 
And that I had seen His kind look when He said, 
'Let the little ones come unto Me.' " 

And yet, if Christ were to come into the world again 
few of us probably would ever have a chance of seeing 
Him. Millions of her subjects, in this little country, have 
never seen their own Queen. And there would be mill- 
ions of the subjects of Christ who could never get within 
speaking distance of Him if He were here. Our com- 
panionship with Him, like all true companionship, is a 
spiritual communion. All friendship, all love, human and 
Divine, is purely spiritual. It was after He was risen that 
He influenced even the disciples most. Hence in reflect- 
ing the character of Christ, it is no real obstacle that we 
may never have been in visible contact with Himself. 

There lived once a young girl whose perfect grace of 
character was the wonder of those who knew her. She 
wore on her neck a gold locket which no one was ever 
allowed to open. One day, in a moment of unusual con- 
fidence, one of her companions was allowed to touch its 
spring and learn its secret. She saw written these words 
— " Whom having not seen, I love." That was the secret 
of her beautiful life. She had been changed into the 
Same Image. 

Now this is not imitation ? but a much deeper thing. 



2$' 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 2 1 

Mark this distinction. For the difference in the process, 
as well as in the result, may be as great as that between 
a photograph secured by the infallible pencil of the sun, 
and the rude outline from a schoolboy's chalk. Imitation 
is mechanical, reflection organic. The one is occasional, 
the other habitual. In the one case, man comes to God 
and imitates Him ; in the other, God comes to man and 
imprints Himself upon Him. It is quite true that there 
is an imitation of Christ which amounts to reflection. But 
Paul's term includes all that the other holds, and is open 
to no mistake. 

" Make Christ your most constant companion " — this 
is what it practically means for us. Be more under His 
influence than any other influence. Ten minutes spent 
in His society every day, ay, two minutes if it be face to 
face, and heart to heart, w^ill make the whole day differ- 
ent. Every character has an inward spring, let Christ be 
it. Every action has a key-note, let Christ set it. Yes- 
terday you got a certain letter. You sat down and wrote 
a reply which almost scorched the paper. You picked 
the cruellest adjectives you knew and sent it forth, with- 
out a pang, to do its ruthless work. You did that because 
your life was set in the wrong key. You began the day 
with the mirror placed at the wrong angle. To-morrow, 
at daybreak, turn it towards Him, and even to your enemy 
the fashion of your countenance will be changed. What- 
ever you then do, one thing you will find you could not 
do — you could not write that letter. Your first impulse 
may be the same, your judgment may be unchanged, but 
if you try it the ink will dry on your pen, and you w T ill 
rise from your desk an unavenged, but a greater and more 
Christian, man. Throughout the whole day your actions. 



22 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

down to the last detail, will do homage to that early 
vision. Yesterday you thought mostly about yourself. 
To-day the poor will meet you, and you will feed them. 
The helpless, the tempted, the sad, will throng about you, 
and each you will befriend. Where were all these people 
yesterday? Where they are to-day, but you did not see 
them. It is in reflected light that the poor are seen. But 
your soul to-day is not at the ordinary angle. " Things 
which are not seen " are visible. For a few short hours 
you live the Eternal Life. The eternal life, the life of 
faith, is simply the life of the higher vision. Faith is an 
attitude — a mirror set at the right angle. 

When to-morrow is over, and in the evening you re- 
view it, you will wonder how you did it. You will not 
be conscious that you strove for anything, or imitated 
anything, or crucified anything. You will be conscious 
of Christ ; that He was with you, that without compulsion 
you were yet compelled, that without force, or noise, or 
proclamation, the revolution was accomplished. You do 
not congratulate yourself as one who has done a mighty 
deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored up a fund 
of " Christian experience " to ensure the same result again. 
What you are conscious of is " the glory of the Lord." 
And what the world is conscious of, if the result be a true 
one, is also "the glory of the Lord." In looking at a 
mirror one does not see the mirror, or think of it, but only 
of what it reflects. For a mirror never calls attention to 
itself — except when there are flaws in it. 

That this is a real experience and not a vision, that this 
life is possible to men, is being lived by men to-day, is 
simple biographical fact. From a thousand witnesses I 
cannot forbear to summon one. The following are the 



2o3 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 23 

words of one of the highest intellects this age has known , 
a man who shared the burdens of his country as few have 
done, and who, not in the shadows of old age, but in the 
high noon of his success, gave this confession — I quote it 
with only a few abridgments — to the world : 

" I want to speak to-night only a little, but that little I 
desire to speak of the sacred name of Christ, who is my 
life, my inspiration, my hope, and my surety. I cannot 
help stopping and looking back upon the past. And I 
wish, as if I had never done it before, to bear witness, 
not only that it is by the grace of God, but that it is by 
the grace of God as manifested in Christ Jesus, that I am 
what I am. I recognise the sublimity and grandeur of 
the revelation of God in His eternal fatherhood as one 
that made the heavens, that founded the earth, and that 
regards all the tribes of the earth, comprehending them in 
one universal mercy ; but it is the God that is manifested 
in Jesus Christ, revealed by His life, made known by the 
inflections of His feelings, by His discourse and by His 
deeds — it is that God that I desire to confess to-night, 
and of whom I desire to say, ' By the love of God in 
Christ Jesus I am what I am.' 

" If you ask me precisely what I mean by that, I say, 
frankly, that more than any recognised influence of my 
father or my mother upon me ; more than the social in- 
fluence of all the members of my father's household ; 
more, so far as I can trace it, or so far as I am made 
aware of it, than all the social influences of every kind, 
Christ has had the formation of my mind and my disposi- 
tion. My hidden ideals of what is beautiful I have drawn 
from Christ. My thoughts of what is manly, and noble, 
and pure, have almost all of them arisen from the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Many men have educated themselves by 
reading Plutarch's Lives of the Ancient Worthies, and set- 
ting before themselves one and another of these that in 



24 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

different ages have achieved celebrity ; and they have 
recognised the great power of these men on themselves. 
Now I do not perceive that poet, or philosopher, or re- 
former, or general, or any other great man, ever has dwelt 
in my imagination and in my thought as the simple Jesus 
has. For more than twenty-five years I instinctively have 
gone to Christ to draw a measure and a rule for every- 
thing. Whenever there has been a necessity for it, I have 
sought — and at last almost spontaneously — to throw my- 
self into the companionship of Christ ; and early, by my 
imagination, I could see Him standing and looking quietly 
and lovingly upon me. There seemed almost to drop 
from His face an influence upon me that suggested what 
was the right thing in the controlling of passion, in the 
subduing of pride, in the overcoming of selfishness ; and 
it is from Christ, manifested to my inward eye, that I have 
consciously derived more ideals, more models, more in- 
fluences, than from any human character whatever. 

" That is not all. I feel conscious that I have derived 
from the Lord Jesus Christ every thought that makes 
heaven a reality to me, and every thought that paves the 
road that lies between me and heaven. All my concep- 
tions of the progress of grace in the soul ; all the steps by 
which divine life is evolved ; all the ideals that overhang 
the blessed sphere which awaits us beyond this world — 
these are derived from the Saviour. The life that I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God. 

" That is not all. Much as my future includes all 
these elements which go to make the blessed fabric of 
earthly life, yet, after all, what the summer is compared 
with all its earthly products — flowers, and leaves, and 
grass — that is Christ compared with all the products of 
Christ in my mind and in my soul. All the flowers and 
leaves of sympathy ; all the twining joys that come from 
my heart as a Christian — these I take and hold in the 
future, but they are to me what the flowers and leaves of 
gummer are compared with the sun that makes the sum- 



.0<r 



THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE. 25 

iner. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
the end of my better life. 

" When I read the Bible, I gather a great deal from the 
Old Testament, and from the Pauline portions of the New 
Testament ; but after all, I am conscious that the fruit of 
the Bible is Christ. That is what I read it for, and that 
is what I find that is worth reading. I have had a hun- 
ger to be loved of Christ. You all know, in some rela- 
tions, what it is to be hungry for love. Your heart seems 
unsatisfied till you can draw something more towards you 
from those that are dearest to you. There have been 
times when I have had an unspeakable heart-hunger for 
Christ's love. My sense of sin is never strong when I 
think of the law ; my sense of sin is strong when I think 
of love — if there is any difference between law and love. 
It is when drawing near the Lord Jesus Christ, and long- 
ing to be loved, that I have the most vivid sense of un- 
symmetry, of imperfection, of absolute unworthiness, and 
of my sinfulness. Character and conduct are never so 
vividly set before me as when in silence I bend in the pres- 
ence of Christ, revealed not in wrath, but in love to me. 
I never so much long to be lovely, that I may be loved, 
as when I have this revelation of Christ before my mind. 

" In looking back upon my experience, that part of my 
life which stands out, and which I remember most vividly, 
is just that part that has had some conscious association 
with Christ. All the rest is pale, and thin, and lies like 
clouds on the horizon. Doctrines, systems, measures, 
methods — what may be called the necessary mechanical 
and external part of worship ; the part which the senses 
would recognise — this seems to have withered and fallen 
off like leaves of last summer ; but that part which has 
taken hold of Christ abides." 

Can any one hear this life-music, with its throbbing re- 
frain of Christ, and remain unmoved by envy or desire? 
Yet, till we have lived like this we have never lived at all. 



THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 

Then you reduce religion to a common Friendship? A 
common Friendship — who talks of a common Friendship? 
There is no such thing in the world. On earth no word 
is more sublime. Friendship is the nearest thing we know 
to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion 
akin to Friendship is simply to give it the highest expres- 
sion conceivable by man. But if by demurring to "a 
common friendship " is meant a protest against the great- 
est and the holiest in religion being spoken of in intelligible 
terms, then I am afraid the objection is all too real. Men 
always look for a mystery when one talks of sanctifica- 
tion ; some mystery apart from that which must ever be 
mysterious wherever Spirit works. It is .thought some 
peculiar secret lies behind it, some occult experience which 
only the initiated know. Thousands of persons go to 
church every Sunday hoping to solve this mystery. At 
meetings, at conferences, many a time they have reached 
what they thought was the very brink of it, but somehow 
no further revelation came. Poring over religious books, 
how often were they not within a paragraph of it ; the 
next page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they 
would be borne on a flowing tide for ever. But nothing 
happened. The next sentence and the next page were 
read, and still it eluded them ; and though the promise of 
its coming kept faithfully up to the end, the last chapter 
found them still pursuing. Why did nothing happen? 
Because there was nothing to happen — nothing of the 
kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? 



%<>1 



THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 27 

Because there was no " it." When shall we learn that the 
pursuit of holiness is simply the pursuit of Christ ? When 
shall we substitute for the " it " of a fictitious aspiration, 
the approach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in char- 
acter and not in moods ; Divinity in our own plain calm 
humanity, and in no mystic rapture of the soul. 

And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary 
reason, will find scant satisfaction here. Their complaint 
is not that a religion expressed in terms of Friendship is 
too homely, but that it is still too mystical. To " abide " 
in Christ, to " make Christ our most constant companion," 
is to them the purest mysticism. They want something 
absolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These are not 
the poetical souls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess ; 
but the prosaic natures whose want is mathematical defini- 
tion in details. Yet it is perhaps not possible to reduce 
this problem to much more rigid elements. The beauty 
of Friendship is its infinity. One can never evacuate life 
of mysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it, religion 
is full of it. Why stumble at that in the relation of man 
to Christ which is natural in the relation of man to man? 

If any one cannot conceive or realise a mystical rela- 
tion with Christ, perhaps all that can be done is to help 
him to step on to it by still plainer analogies from com- 
mon life. How do I know Shakespeare or Dante? By 
communing with their words and thoughts. Many men 
know Dante better than their own fathers. He influences 
them more. As a spiritual presence he is more near to 
them, as a spiritual force more real. Is there any reason 
why a greater than Shakespeare or Dante, who also walked 
this earth, who left great words behind Him, who has 
great works everywhere in the world now, should not also 



28 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

instruct, inspire, and mould the characters of men? I do 
not limit Christ's influence to this. It is this, and it is 
more. But Christ, so far from resenting or discouraging 
this relation of Friendship, Himself proposed it. "Abide 
in Me " was almost His last word to the world. And He 
partly met the difficulty of those who feel its intangible- 
ness by adding the practical clause, "If ye abide in Me 
and My words abide i?i you" 

Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be 
long impersonal. Christ Himself was a Word, a word 
made Flesh. Make His words flesh ; do them, live them, 
and you must live Christ. "He that keepeth My command- 
ments^ he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him and you must 
love Him. Abide in Him and you must obey Him. 
Cultivate His Friendship. Live after Christ, in His Spirit, 
as in His Presence, and it is difficult to think what more 
you can do. Take this at least as a first lesson, as intro- 
duction. If you cannot at once and always feel the play 
of His life upon yours, w r atch for it also indirectly. " The 
whole earth is full of the character of the Lord." Christ is 
the Light of the world, and much of His Light is reflected 
from things in the world — even from clouds. Sunlight is 
stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal, and it com- 
forts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the 
sun. Christ shines through men, through books, through 
history, through nature, music, art. Look for Him there. 
" Every day one should either look at a beautiful picture, 
or hear beautiful music, or read a beautiful poem." The 
real danger of mysticism is not making it broad enough. 

Do not think that nothing is happening because you do 
not see yourself grow, or hear the whirr of the machinery. 
All great things grow noiselessly. You can see a mush- 
room grow, but never a child. Mr. Darwin tell us that 



2*1 



THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 29 

Evolution proceeds by ''numerous, successive, and slight 
modifications. " Paul knew that, and put it, only in more 
beautiful words, into the heart of his formula. He said 
for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they 
grew " from character to character." " The inward man," 
he says elsewhere, " is renewed from day to day." All 
thorough work is slow ; all true development by minute, 
slight, and insensible metamorphoses. The higher the 
structure, moreover, the slower the progress. As the 
biologist runs his eye over the long Ascent of Life he sees 
the lowest forms of animals develop in an hour ; the next 
above these reach maturity in a day ; those higher still 
take weeks or months to perfect ; but the few at the top 
demand the long experiment of years. If a child and an 
ape are born on the same day the last will be in full pos- 
session of its faculties and doing the active work of life 
before the child has left its cradle. Life is the cradle of 
eternity. As the man is to the animal in the slowness of 
his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural man. 
Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life 
must be surely laid. Character is to wear for ever ; who will 
wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day? 
To await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an al- 
most Divine act of faith. How pardonable, surely, the 
impatience of deformity with itself, of a consciously despi- 
cable character standing before Christ, wondering, yearn- 
ing, hungering to be like that? Yet must one trust the 
process fearlessly, and without misgiving. "The Lord 
the Spirit " will do His part. The tempting expedient is, 
in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method 
less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects 
instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A photograph 
prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. 



$0 THE CHANGED LIFE. 

While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he 
simply stops the getting on. Whatever of wise super- 
vision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be 
over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the 
world can improve the result or quicken it. The creation of 
a new heart, the renewing of a right spirit is an omnipotent 
work of God. Leave it to the Creator. " He which hath 
begun a good work in you will perfect it unto that day." 

No man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and so- 
lemnity of what is at stake will be careless as to his prog- 
ress. To become like Christ is the only thing in the 
world worth caring for, the thing before which every am- 
bition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain. 
Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and 
passion of their lives can even begin to hope to reach it. 
If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point as if all de- 
pended on passivity, let me now assert, with conviction 
more intense, that all depends on activity. A religion of 
effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel but 
never for a man. Not in the contemplative, but in the 
active, lies true hope ; not in rapture, but in reality, lies 
true life ; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible 
things, is man's sanctincation wrought. Resolution, effort, 
pain, self-crucifixion, agony — all the things already dis- 
missed as futile in themselves must now be restored to 
office, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them. For 
what is their office? Nothing less than to move the vast 
inertia of the soul, and place it, and keep it where the 
spiritual forces will act upon it. It is to rally the forces 
of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright and 
ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to 
look at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed 



211 



THE FIRST EXPERIMENT. 3 1 

sights are near. You have, perhaps, gone with an as- 
tronomer to watch him photograph the spectrum of a star. 
As you entered the dark vault of the observatory you saw 
him begin by lighting a candle. To see the star with? 
No ; but to see to adjust the instrument to see the star 
with. It was the star that was going to take the photo- 
graph ; it was, also, the astronomer. For a long time he 
worked in the dimness, screwing tubes and polishing 
lenses and adjusting reflectors, and only after much labour 
the finely focussed instrument was brought to bear. Then 
he blew out the light, and left the star to do its work upon 
the plate alone. The day's task for the Christian is to 
bring his instrument to bear. Having done that he may 
blow out his candle. All the evidences of Christianity 
which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all acts 
of Worship, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer 
and Meditation, all girding of the Will— these lesser pro- 
cesses, these candle-light activities for that supreme hour 
may be set aside. But, remember, it is but for an hour. 
The wise man will be he who quickest lights his candle ; 
the wisest he who never lets it out. To-morrow, the next 
moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it 
again to focus the Image better, to take a mote off the 
lens, to clear the mirror from a breath with which the 
world has dulled it. 

No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. 
That is one great fixed point in this shifting universe. But 
the world moves. And each day, each hour, demands a 
further motion and readjustment for the soul. A telescope 
in an observatory follows a star by clockwork, but the 
clockwork of the soul is called the Will. Hence, while 
the soul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the 



32 THE CHANGED LIFE* 

Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position lest 
the drifting motion of the world bear it beyond the line of 
vision. To " follow Christ " is largely to keep the soul in 
such position as will allow for the motion of the earth. 
And this calculated counteracting of the movements of a 
world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the 
Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly, through 
cloud and earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous 
co-operating labour of the Will. It is all man's work. It 
is all Christ's work. In practice it is both ; in theory it 
is both. But the w T ise man will say in practice, " It de- 
pends upon myself." 

In the Galerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a 
famous statue. It was the last work of a great genius, 
who, like many a genius, was very poor and lived in a 
garret, which served as studio and sleeping-room alike. 
When the statue was all but finished, one midnight a sud- 
den frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake in the 
fireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought 
how the water would freeze in the pores and destroy in an 
hour the dream of his life. So the old man rose from his 
couch and heaped the bed-clothes reverently round his 
work. In the morning, when the neighbours entered the 
room the sculptor was dead. But the statue lived. 

The Image of Christ that is forming within us — that is 
life's one charge. Let every project stand aside for that. 
" Till Christ be formed," no man's work is finished, no re- 
ligion crowned, no life has fulfilled its end. Is the infinite 
task begun? When, how, are we to be different? Time 
cannot change men. Death cannot change men. Christ 
can. Wherefore put on Christ. 



US 



THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH 



Copyright, 1892, by 
HENRY DRUMMOND 



1ft 3obn, 

Saw tbe 1bolg Cttg, 

Iftew Jerusalem, 

Coming down from <SoD out ot Ibeaven. 

* * * 

BnD 1f saw no temple tberein, 

^< jji >ji 

BnD Ibie servants sball serve 1bfm ; 

BnD tbe# sball see Ibte ff ace ; 

Sn& Ibis IRame sball be written on tbeir forebeafcs. 



2/7 




THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH 



i. 



I SAW THE CITY. 



Two very startling things arrest us in John's 
vision of the future. The first is that the 
likest thing to Heaven he could think of was 
a City ; the second, that there was no Church 
in that City. 

Almost nothing more revolutionary could be 
said, even to the modern world, in the name 
of religion. No Church — that is the defiance 
of religion ; a City — that is the antipodes of 



IO THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

Heaven. Yet John combines these contradic- 
tions in one daring image, and holds up to the 
world the picture of a City without a Church as 
his ideal of the heavenly life. 

By far the most original thing here is the 
simple conception of Heaven as a City. The 
idea of religion without a Church—" I saw no 
Temple therein " — is anomalous enough ; but 
the association of the blessed life with a City — 
the one place in the world from which Heaven 
seems most far away — is something wholly new 
in religious thought. No other religion which 
has a Heaven ever had a Heaven like this. 
The Greek, if he looked forward at all, awaited 
the Elysian Fields ; the Eastern sought Nir- 
vana. All other Heavens have been Gardens, 
Dreamlands — passivities more or less aimless. 
Even to the majority among ourselves Heaven 
is a siesta and not a City. It remained for 



I SAW THE CITY. II 

John to go straight to the other extreme and 
select the citadel of the world's fever, the 
ganglion of its unrest, the heart and focus of its 
most strenuous toil, as the framework for his 
ideal of the blessed life. 

The Heaven of Christianity is different from 
all other Heavens, because the religion of 
Christianity is different from all other religions. 
Christianity is the religion of Cities. It moves 
among real things. Its sphere is the street, the 
market-place, the working-life of the world. 

And what interests one for the present in 
John's vision is not so much what it reveals of 
a Heaven beyond, but what it suggests of the 
nature of the heavenly life in this present 
world. Find out what a man's Heaven is — no 
matter whether it be a dream or a reality, no 
matter whether it refer to an actual Heaven or 
to a Kingdom of God to be realized on earth — 



12 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

and you pass by an easy discovery to what his 
religion is. And herein lies one value at least 
of this allegory. It is a touchstone for Christi- 
anity, a test for the solidity or the insipidity of 
one's religion, for the wholesomeness or the 
fatuousness of one's faith, for the usefulness or 
the futility of one's life. For this vision of the 
City marks off in lines which no eye can mis- 
take the true area which the religion of Christ 
is meant to inhabit, and announces for all time 
the real nature of the saintly life. 

City life is human life at its intensest, man 
in his most real relations. And the nearer one 
draws to reality, the nearer one draws to the 
working sphere of religion. Wherever real life 
is, there Christ goes. And He goes there, not 
only because the great need lies there, but be- 
cause there is found, so to speak, the raw ma- 
terial with which Christianity works — the life 



zil 



1 SAW THE CITY. 1 3 



of man. To do something with this, to infuse 
something into this, to save and inspire and 
sanctify this, the actual working life of the 
world, is what He came for. Without human 
life to act upon, without the relations of men 
with one another, of master with servant, hus- 
band with wife, buyer with seller, creditor with 
debtor, there is no such thing as Christianity. 
With actual things, with Humanity in its 
every-day dress, with the traffic of the streets, 
with gates and houses, with work and wages, 
with sin and poverty, with these things^ and 
all the things and all the relations and all the 
people of the City, Christianity has to do, and 
has more to do than with anything else. To 
conceive of the Christian religion as itself a 
thing — a something which can exist apart from 
life; to think of it as something added on to 
being, something kept in a separate compart- 



14 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

ment called the soul, as an extra accomplish- 
ment like music, or a special talent like art, is 
totally to misapprehend its nature. It is that 
which fills all compartments. It is that which 
makes the whole life music and every sep- 
arate action a work of art. Take away ac- 
tion and it is not. Take away people, houses, 
streets, character, and it ceases to be. Without 
these there may be sentiment, or rapture, or 
adoration, or superstition ; there may even be 
religion, but there can never be the religion of 
the Son of Man. 

If Heaven were a siesta, religion might be 
conceived of as a reverie. If the future life 
were to be mainly spent in a Temple, the 
present life might be mainly spent in Church. 
But if Heaven be a City, the life of those 
who are going there must be a real life. The 
man who would enter John's Heaven, no mat- 



*3 



I SAW THE CITY. 1 5 



ter what piety or what faith he may profess, 
must be a real man. Christ's gift to men was 
life, a rich and abundant life. And life is 
meant for living. An abundant life does not 
show itself in abundant dreaming, but in abun- 
dant living — in abundant living among real 
and tangible objects, and to actual and practi- 
cal purposes. " His servants," John tells us, 
" shall serve." In this vision of the City he 
confronts us with a new definition of a Chris- 
tian man — the perfect saint is the perfect citi- 
zen. 

To make Cities — that is what we are here 
for. To make good Cities — that is for the pres- 
ent hour the main work of Christianity. For 
the City is strategic. It makes the towns ; the 
towns make the villages ; the villages make the 
country. He who makes the City makes the 
world. After all, though men make Cities, 



l6 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

it is Cities which make men. Whether our 
national life is great or mean, whether our 
social virtues are mature or stunted, whether 
our sons are moral or vicious, whether religion 
is possible or impossible, depends upon the 
City. When Christianity shall take upon it- 
self in full responsibility the burden and care 
of Cities the Kingdom of God will openly 
come on earth. What Christianity waits for 
also, as its final apologetic and justification to 
the world, is the founding of a City which 
shall be in visible reality a City of God. Peo- 
ple do not dispute that religion is in the 
Church. What is now wanted is to let them 
see it in the City. One Christian City, one 
City in any part of the earth, whose citizens 
from the greatest to the humblest lived in the 
spirit of Christ, where religion had overflowed 
the Churches and passed into the streets, in- 



2^^ 



I SAW THE CITY. I? 

undating every house and workshop, and per- 
meating the whole social and commercial life 
— one such Christian City would seal the re- 
demption of the world. 

Some such City, surely, was what John saw 
in his dream. Whatever reference we may 
find there to a world to come, is it not equally 
lawful to seek the scene upon this present 
world ? John saw his City descending out of 
Heaven. It was, moreover, no strange appari- 
tion, but a City which he knew. It was Je- 
rusalem, a new Jerusalem. The significance 
of that name has been altered for most of us 
by religious poetry ; we spell it with a capital 
and speak of the New Jerusalem as a syn- 
onym for Heaven. Yet why not take it sim- 
ply as it stands, as a new Jerusalem ? Try to 
restore the natural force of the expression — 
suppose John to have lived to-day and to have 



1 8 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

said London ? "I saw a new London ? " Je- 
rusalem was John's London. All the grave 
and sad suggestion that the word London 
brings up to-day to the modern reformer, the 
word Jerusalem recalled to him. What in his 
deepest hours he longed and prayed for was a 
new Jerusalem, a reformed Jerusalem. And 
just as it is given to the man in modern 
England who is a prophet, to the man who 
believes in God and in the moral order of the 
world, to discern a new London shaping itself 
through all the sin and chaos of the City, so 
was it given to John to see a new Jerusalem 
rise from the ruins of the old. 

We have no concern — it were contrary to 
critical method — to press the allegory in detail. 
What we take from it, looked at in this light, 
is the broad conception of a transformed City, 
the great Christian thought that the very 



^^7 

I SAW THE CITY. 19 



Cities where we live, with all their suffering 
and sin, shall one day, by the gradual action 
of the forces of Christianity, be turned into 
Heavens on earth. This is a spectacle which 
profoundly concerns the world. To the re- 
former, the philanthropist, the economist, the 
politician, this Vision of the City is the great 
classic of social literature. What John saw, we 
may fairly take it, was the future of all Cities. 
It was the dawn of a new social order, a re- 
generate humanity, a purified society, an act- 
ual transformation of the Cities of the world 
into Cities of God. 

This City, then, which John saw is none other 
than your City, the place where you live — as it 
might be, and as you are to help to make it. It 
is London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Melbourne, 
Calcutta — these as they might be, and in some 
infinitesimal degree as they have already begun 



20 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

to be. In each of these, and in every City 
throughout the world to-day, there is a City 
descending out of Heaven from God. Each one 
of us is daily building up this City or helping to 
keep it back. Its walls rise slowly, but, as we 
believe in God, the building can never cease. 
For the might of those who build, be they few 
or many, is so surely greater than the might of 
those who retard, that no day's sun sets over 
any City in the land that does not see some 
stone of the invisible City laid. To believe this 
is faith. To live for this is Christianity. 

The project is delirious ? Yes — to atheism. 
To John it was the most obvious thing in the 
world. Nay, knowing all he knew, its realiza- 
tion was inevitable. We forget, when the thing 
strikes us as strange, that John knew Christ. 
Christ was the Light of the World —the Light 
of the World. This is all that he meant by his 



2>? 



I SAW THE CITY. 21 

Vision, that Christ is the Light of the World. 
This Light, John saw, would fall everywhere — 
especially upon Cities. It was irresistible and 
inextinguishable. No darkness could stand be- 
fore it. One by one the Cities of the world 
would give up their night. Room by room, 
house by house, street by street, they would be 
changed. Whatsoever worketh abomination or 
maketh a lie would disappear. Sin, pain, sor- 
row, would silently pass away. One day the 
walls of the City would be jasper; the very 
streets would be paved with gold. Then the 
kings of the earth would bring their glory and 
honour into it. In the midst of the streets 
there should be a tree of Life. And its leaves 
would go forth for the healing of the nations. 

Survey the Cities of the world to-day, sur- 
vey your own City — town, village, home — and 
prophesy. God's kingdom is surely to come 



22 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

in this world. God's will is surely to be done 
on earth as it is done in Heaven. Is not this 
one practicable way of realizing it ? When a 
prophet speaks of something that is to be, 
that coming event is usually brought about 
by no unrelated cause or sudden shock, but 
in the ordered course of the world's drama. 
With Christianity as the supreme actor in the 
world's drama, the future of its Cities is even 
now quite clear. Project the lines of Christian 
and social progress to their still far-off goal, 
and see even now that Heaven must come to 
earth. 




231 




II. 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 



If anyone wishes to know what he can do 
to help on the work of God in the world, let 
him make a City, or a street, or a house of 
a City. Men complain of the indefiniteness 
of religion. There are thousands ready in 
their humble measure to offer some personal 
service for the good of men, but they do not 
know where to begin. Let me tell you where 
to begin — where Christ told His disciples to 
begin, at the nearest City. I promise you 
that before one week's work is over you will 



24 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

never again be haunted by the problem of 
the indefiniteness of Christianity. You will 
see so much to do, so many actual things to 
be set right, so many merely material condi- 
tions to alter, so much striving with employ- 
ers of labour, and City- councils, and trade 
agitators, and Boards, and Vestries and Com- 
mittees ; so much pure, unrelieved, uninspir- 
ing hard work, that you will begin to won- 
der whether in all this naked realism you are 
on holy ground at all. Do not be afraid of 
missing Heaven in seeking a better earth. 
The distinction between secular and sacred is 
a confusion and not a contrast ; and it is only 
because the secular is so intensely sacred that 
so many eyes are blind before it. The really- 
secular thing in life is the spirit which de- 
spises under that name what is but part of 
the everywhere present work and will of God. 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 2$ 

Be sure that, down to the last and pettiest 
detail, all that concerns a better world is the 
direct concern of Christ. 

I make this, then, in all seriousness as a de- 
finite, practical proposal. You wish, you say, 
to be a religious man. Well, be one. There 
is your City ; begin. But what are you to 
believe ? Believe in your City. What else ? 
In Jesus Christ. What about Him? That 
He wants to make your City better ; that that 
is what He would be doing if He lived there. 
What else ? Believe in yourself — that you, 
even you, can do some of the work which 
He would like done, and that unless you do 
it, it will remain undone. How are you to 
begin ? As Christ did. First He looked at 
the City ; then He wept over it ; then He 
died for it. 

Where are you to begin ? Begin where you 



26 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

are. Make that one corner, room, house, office, 
as like Heaven as you can. Begin ? Begin 
with the paper on the walls, make that beauti- 
ful ; with the air, keep it fresh ; with the very- 
drains, make them sweet ; with the furniture, 
see that it be honest. Abolish whatsoever 
worketh abomination — in food, in drink, in 
luxury, in books, in art ; whatsoever maketh 
a lie — in conversation, in social intercourse, in 
correspondence, in domestic life. This done, 
you have arranged for a Heaven, but you 
have not got it. Heaven lies within, in kind- 
ness, in humbleness, in unselfishness, in faith, 
in love, in service. To get these in, get Christ 
in. Teach all in the house about Christ — 
what He did, and what He said, and how 
He lived, and how He died, and how He 
dwells in them, and how He makes all one. 
Teach it not as a doctrine, but as a discovery, 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 27 

as your own discovery. Live your own dis- 
covery. 

Then pass out into the City. Do all to it 
that you have done at home. Beautify it, 
ventilate it, drain it. Let nothing enter it 
that can defile the streets, the stage, the news- 
paper offices, the booksellers' counters ; noth- 
ing that maketh a lie in its warehouses, its 
manufactures, its shops, its art galleries, its 
advertisements. Educate it, amuse it, church 
it. Christianize capital ; dignify labour. Join 
Councils and Committees. Provide for the 
poor, the sick, and the widow. So will you 
serve the City. 

If you ask me which of all these things is 
the most important, I reply that among them 
there is only one thing of superlative im- 
portance, and that is yourself. By far the 
greatest thing a man can do for his City is 



28 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

to be a good man. Simply to live there as a 
good man, as a Christian man of action and 
practical citizen, is the first and highest con- 
tribution any one can make to its salvation. 
Let a City be a Sodom or a Gomorrah, and 
if there be but ten righteous men in it, it 
will be saved. 

It is here that the older, the more individ- 
ual, conception of Christianity, did such mighty 
work for the world — it produced good men. 
It is goodness that tells, goodness first and 
goodness last. Good men even with small 
views are immeasurably more important to the 
world than small men with great views. But 
given good men, such men as were produced 
even by the self-centred theology of an older 
generation, and add that wider outlook and 
social ideal which are coming to be the charac- 
teristics of the religion of this age, and Chris- 



Z37 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 29 

tianity has an equipment for the reconstruction 
of the world, before which nothing can stand. 
Such good men will not merely content them- 
selves with being good men. They will be 
forces — according to their measure, public forces. 
They will take the City in hand, some a house, 
some a street, and some the whole. Of set 
purpose they will serve. Not ostentatiously, 
but silently, in ways varied as human nature, 
and many as life's opportunities, they will 
minister to its good. * 

To help the people, also, to be good people 
— good fathers, and mothers, and sons, and 
citizens — is worth all else rolled into one. Ar- 
range the government of the City as you may, 
perfect all its philanthropic machinery, make 
righteous its relations great and small, equip 
it with galleries and parks, and libraries and 
music, and carry out the whole programme 



30 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

of social reform, and the one thing needful is 
still without the gates. The gospel of mate- 
rial blessedness is part of a gospel — a great and 
Christian part — but when held up as the 
whole gospel for the people it is as hollow as 
the void of life whose circumference even it 
fails to touch. 

There are countries in the world — new 
countries — where the people, rising to the 
rights of government, have already secured 
almost all that reformers cry for. The lot of 
the working - man there is all but perfect. 
His wages are high, his leisure great, his 
home worthy. Yet in tens of thousands of 
cases the secret of life is unknown. 

It is idle to talk of Christ as a social re- 
former, if by that is meant that His first con- 
cern was to improve the organization of 
society, or to provide the world with better 



237 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 3 1 

laws. These were among His objects, but 
His first was to provide the world with bet- 
ter men. The one need of every cause and 
every community still is for better men. If 
every workshop held a Workman like Him 
who worked in the carpenter's shop at Naz- 
areth, the labour problem and all other work- 
man's problems would soon be solved. If 
every street had a home or two like Mary's 
home in Bethany, the domestic life of the 
city would be transformed in three genera- 
tions. 

External reforms — education, civilization, 
public schemes, and public charities — have 
each their part to play. Any experiment that 
can benefit by one hair-breadth any single hu- 
man life is a thousand times worth trying. 
There is no effort in any single one of these 
directions but must, as Christianity advances, 



32 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

be pressed by Christian men to ever further 
and fuller issues. But those whose hands 
have tried the most, and whose eyes have 
seen the furthest, have come back to regard 
first the deeper evangel of individual lives, 
and the philanthropy of quiet ways, and the 
slow work of leavening men one by one with 
the spirit of Jesus Christ. 

The thought that the future, that any day, 
may see some new and mighty enterprise of 
redemption, some new departure in religion, 
which shall change everything with a breath 
and make all that is crooked straight, is not 
at all likely to be realized. There is nothing 
wrong with the lines on which redemption 
runs at present except the want of faith to 
believe in them, and the want of men to use 
them. The Kingdom of God is like leaven, 
and the leaven is with us now. The quantity 



27 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 33 

at work in the world may increase, but that is 
all. For nothing can ever be higher than the 
Spirit of Christ, or more potent as a regener- 
ating power on the lives of men. 

Do not charge me with throwing away my 
brief because I return to this old, old plea for 
the individual soul. I do not forget that my 
plea is for the City. But I plead for good men, 
because good men are good leaven. If their 
goodness stop short of that, if the leaven does 
not mix with that which is unleavened, if it 
does not do the work of leaven — that is, to 
raise something — it is not the leaven of Christ. 
The question for good men to ask themselves 
is: Is my goodness helping others? Is it a pri- 
vate luxury, or is it telling upon the City ? Is 
it bringing any single human soul nearer hap- 
piness or righteousness ? 

If you ask what particular scheme you shall 
3 



34 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

take up, I cannot answer. Christianity has no 
set schemes. It makes no choice between con- 
flicting philanthropies, decides nothing between 
competing churches, favours no particular public 
policy, organizes no one line of private charity. 
It is not essential even for all of us to take any 
public or formal line. Christianity is not all 
carried on by Committees, and the Kingdom of 
God has other ways of coming than through 
municipal reforms. Most of the stones for the 
building of the City of God, and all the best of 
them, are made by mothers. But whether or 
no you shall work through public channels, or 
only serve Christ along the quieter paths of 
home, no man can determine but yourself. 

There is an almost awful freedom about 
Christ's religion. " I do not call you servants/' 
He said, " for the servant knoweth not what his 
lord doeth. I have called you friends." As 



^4 3 

HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. 35 

Christ's friends, His followers are supposed to 
know what He wants done, and for the same 
reason they will try to do it — this is the whole 
working basis of Christianity. Surely, next to 
its love for the chief of sinners the most touch- 
ing thing about the religion of Christ is its 
amazing trust in the least of saints. Here is 
the mightiest enterprise ever launched upon 
this earth, mightier even than its creation, for it 
is its re-creation, and the carrying of it out is 
left, so to speak, to haphazard — to individual 
loyalty, to free enthusiasms, to uncoerced activ- 
ities, to an uncompelled response to the pres- 
sures of God's Spirit. 

Christ sets His followers no tasks. He ap- 
points no hours. He allots no sphere. He 
Himself simply went about and did good. He 
did not stop life to do some special thing which 
should be called religious. His life was His re- 



36 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

ligion. Each day as it came brought round in 
the ordinary course its natural ministry. Each- 
village along the highway had someone waiting 
to be helped. His pulpit was the hillside, His 
congregation a woman at a well. The poor, 
wherever He met them, were His clients; the 
sick, as often as He found them, His oppor- 
tunity. His work was everywhere; His work- 
shop was the world. One's associations of 
Christ are all of the wayside. We never think 
of Him in connection with a Church. We can- 
not picture Him in the garb of a priest or be- 
longing to any of the classes who specialize 
religion. His service was of a universal human 
order. He was the Son of Man, the Citizen. 

This, remember, was the highest life ever 
lived, this informal citizen-life. So simple a 
thing it was, so natural, so human, that those 
who saw it first did not know it was religion, 



JL1 J 



HIS SERVANTS SHALL SERVE. tf 

and Christ did not pass among them as a very 
religious man. Nay, it is certain, and it is an 
infinitely significant thought, that the religious 
people of His time not only refused to accept 
this type of religion as any kind of religion at 
all, but repudiated and denounced Him as its 
bitter enemy. 

Inability to discern what true religion is, is 
not confined to the Pharisees. Multitudes still 
who profess to belong to the religion of Christ, 
scarcely know it when they see it. The truth is, 
men will hold to almost anything in the name 
of Christianity, believe anything, do anything 
— except its common and obvious tasks. Great 
is the mystery of what has passed in this world 
for religion. 





III. 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 



" I SAW no Church there," said John. Nor is 
there any note of surprise as he marks the 
omission of what one half of Christendom 
would have considered the first essential. For 
beside the type of religion he had learned from 
Christ, the Church type — the merely Church 
type — is an elaborate evasion. What have the 
pomp and circumstance, the fashion and the 
form, the vestures and the postures, to do with 
Jesus of Nazareth ? At a stage in personal 



2/7 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 39 

development, and for a certain type of mind, 
such things may have a place. But when mis- 
taken for Christianity, no matter how they aid , 
it, or in what measure they conserve it, they 
defraud the souls of men, and rob humanity of 
its dues. It is because to large masses of peo- 
ple Christianity has become synonymous with 
a Temple service that other large masses of 
people decline to touch it. It is a mistake to 
suppose that the working classes of this country 
are opposed to Christianity. No man can ever 
be opposed to Christianity who knows what it 
really is. The working-men would still follow 
Christ if He came among them. As a matter 
of fact they do follow anyone, preacher or 
layman, in pulpit or on platform, who is the 
least like Him. But what they cannot fol- 
low, and must evermore live outside of, is a 
worship which ends with the worshipper, a 



40 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

religion expressed only in ceremony, and a 
faith unrelated to life. 

Perhaps the most dismal fact of history is 
the failure of the great organized bodies of ec 
clesiasticism to understand the simple genius 
of Christ's religion. Whatever the best in the 
Churches of all time may have thought of the 
life and religion of Christ, taken as a whole 
they have succeeded in leaving upon the mind 
of a large portion of the world an impression 
of Christianity which is the direct opposite of 
the reality. Down to the present hour, almost 
whole nations in Europe live, worship, and die 
under the belief that Christ is an ecclesiastical 
Christ, religion the sum of all the Churches' 
observances, and faith an adhesion to the 
Churches' creeds. I do not apportion blame; 
I simply record the fact. Everything that the 
spiritual and temporal authority of man could 



299 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 4* 

do has been done — done in ignorance of the 
true nature of Christianity — to dislodge the 
religion of Christ from its natural home in 
the heart of Humanity. In many lands the 
Churches have literally stolen Christ from the 
people ; they have made the Son of Man the 
Priest of an Order ; they have taken Chris- 
tianity from the City and imprisoned it be- 
hind altar rails ; they have withdrawn it from 
the national life and doled it out to the few 
who pay to keep up the unconscious deception. 
Do not do the Church, the true Church at 
least, the injustice to think that she does not 
know all this. Nowhere, not even in the 
fiercest secular press, is there more exposure 
of this danger, more indignation at its con- 
tinuance, than in many of the Churches of 
to-day. The protest against the confusion of 
Christianity with the Church is the most 



42 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

threadbare of pulpit themes. Before the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, from the pulpit of St. 
Mary's, these words were lately spoken : " If 
it is strange that the Church of the darker 
ages should have needed so bitter a lesson 
(the actual demolition of their churches), is it 
not ten times stranger still that the Church 
of the days of greater enlightenment should 
be found again making the chief part of its 
business the organizing of the modes of wor- 
ship ; that the largest efforts which are owned 
as the efforts of the Church are made for 
the establishment and maintenance of wor- 
ship; that our chief controversies relate to the 
teaching and the ministry of a system de- 
signed primarily, if not exclusively, for wor- 
ship ; that even the fancies and the refinements 
of such a system divide us ; that the breach be- 
tween things secular and things religious grows 



x*\ 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 43 

wider instead of their being made to blend 
into one ; and that the vast and fruitful spaces 
of the actual life of mankind lie still so largely 
without the gates ? The old Jerusalem was 
all temple. The mediaeval Church was all 
temple. But the ideal of the new Jerusa- 
lem was — no temple, but a God-inhabited so- 
ciety. Are we not reversing this ideal in an 
age when the Church still means in so many 
mouths the clergy, instead of meaning the 
Christian society, and when nine men are 
striving to get men to go to church for one 
who is striving to make men realize that they 
themselves are the Church ? " 

Yet, even with words so strong as these 
echoing daily from Protestant pulpits, the su- 
perstition reigns in all but unbroken power. 
And everywhere still men are found confound- 
ing the spectacular services of a Church, the 



44 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

vicarious religion of a priest, and the tradi- 
tional belief in a creed, with the living relig- 
ion of the Son of Man. 

" I saw no Temple there " — the future City 
will be a City without a Church. Ponder that 
fact, realize the temporariness of the Church, 
then — go and build one. Do not imagine, be- 
cause all this has been said, that I mean to 
depreciate the Church. On the contrary, if it 
were mine to build a City, a City where all 
life should be religious, and all men destined 
to become members of the Body of Christ, 
the first stone I should lay there would be 
the foundation-stone of a Church. Why ? Be- 
cause, among other reasons, the product which 
the Church on the whole best helps to de- 
velop, and in the largest quantity, is that which 
is most needed by the City. 

For the present, and for a long time to come, 



1& 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 45 

the manufactory of good men, the nursery of 
the forces which are to redeem the City, will 
in the main be found to be some more or 
less formal, more or less imperfect, Christian 
Church. Here and there an unchurched soul 
may stir the multitudes to lofty deeds ; isolated 
men, strong enough to preserve their souls 
apart from the Church, but short-sighted enough 
perhaps to fail to see that others cannot, may 
set high examples and stimulate to national 
reforms. But for the rank and file of us, made 
of such stuff as we are made of, the steady 
pressures of fixed institutions, the regular diets 
of a common worship, and the education of 
public Christian teaching, are too obvious safe- 
guards of spiritual culture to be set aside. 
Even Renan declares his conviction that " Be- 
yond the family and outside the State, man 
has need of the Church. . . . Civil society, 



46 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

whether it calls itself a commune, a canton, or 
a province, a state, or fatherland, has many 
duties towards the improvement ef the indi- 
vidual ; but what it does is necessarily limited. 
The family ought to do much more, but often 
it is insufficient ; sometimes it is wanting alto- 
gether. The association created in the name of 
moral principle can alone give to every man 
coming into this world a bond which unites 
him with the past, duties a~s to the future, ex- 
amples to follow, a heritage to receive and to 
transmit, and a tradition of devotion to con- 
tinue." Apart altogether from the quality of 
its contribution to society, in the mere quan- 
tity of the work it turns out it stands alone. 
Even for social purposes the Church is by 
far the greatest Employment Bureau in the 
world. And the man who, seeing where it 
falls short, withholds on that account his wit- 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 47 

ness to its usefulness, is a traitor to history 
and to fact. 

" The Church," as the preacher whom I have 
already quoted most truly adds, " is a society 
which tends to embrace the whole life of man- 
kind, to bind all their relations together by a 
Divine sanction. As such, it blends naturally 
with the institutions of common life — those in- 
stitutions which, because they are natural and 
necessary, are therefore Divine. What it aims 
at is not the recognition by the nation of a 
worshipping body, governed by the ministers of 
public worship, which calls itself the Church, 
but that the nation and all classes in it should 
act upon Christian principle, that laws should 
be made in Christ's spirit of justice, that the 
relations of the powers of the state should be 
maintained on a basis of Christian equity, that 
all public acts should be done in Christ's spirit, 



r 



48 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

and with mutual forbearance, that the spirit of 
Christian charity should be spread through all 
ranks and orders of the people. The Church 
will maintain public worship as one of the 
greatest supports of a Christian public life ; 
but it will always remember that the true ser- 
vice is a life of devotion to God and man far 
more than the common utterance of prayer." 

I have said that, were it mine to build a City, 
the first stone I should lay there would be the 
foundation-stone of a Church. But if it were 
mine to preach the first sermon in that Church, 
I should choose as the text, " I saw no Church 
therein." I should tell the people that the 
great use of the Church is to help men to do 
without it. As the old ecclesiastical term has 
it, Church services are " diets " of worship. 
They are meals. All who are hungry will take 
them, and, if they are wise, regularly. But no 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 49 

workman is paid for his meals. He is paid for 
the work he does in the strength of them. No 
Christian is paid for going to Church. He 
goes there for a meal, for strength from God 
and from his fellow-worshippers to do the work 
of life — which is the work of Christ. The 
Church is a Divine institution because it is so 
very human an institution. As a channel of 
nourishment, as a stimulus to holy deeds, as a 
link with all holy lives, let all men use it, and 
to the utmost of their opportunity. But by 
ail that they know of Christ or care for man, 
let them beware of mistaking its services for 
Christianity. What Church services really ex- 
press is the want of Christianity. And when 
that which is perfect in Christianity is come, 
all this, as the mere passing stay and scaffold- 
ing of struggling souls, must vanish away. 

If the masses who never go to Church only 
4 



50 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

knew that the Churches were the mute ex- 
pression of a Christian's wants, and not the 
self-advertisement of his sanctity, they w T ould 
have more respectful words for Churches. But 
they have never learned this. And the result 
in their case of confounding religion with the 
Church is even more serious than in the case 
of the professing Christian. When they break 
with the Church it means to them a break 
with all religion. As things are it could scarce 
be otherwise. With the Church in ceaseless 
evidence before their eyes as the acknowledged 
custodian of Christianity ; with actual stone 
and lime in every street representing the place 
where religion dwells ; with a professional class 
moving out and in among them, holding in 
their hands the souls of men, and almost the 
keys of Heaven— how is it possible that those 
who turn their backs on all this should not 



2W 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 5 1 

feel outcast from the Church's God ? It is 
not possible. Without a murmur, yet with 
results to themselves most disastrous and 
pathetic, multitudes accept this false dividing- 
line and number themselves as excommunicate 
from all good. The masses will never return 
to the. Church till its true relation to the City 
is more defined. And they can never have 
that most real life of theirs made religious 
so long as they rule themselves out of court 
on the ground that they have broken with 
ecclesiastical forms. The life of the masses 
is the most real of all lives. It is full of 
religious possibilities. Every movement of it 
and every moment of it might become of 
supreme religious value, might hold a con- 
tinuous spiritual discipline, might perpetuate, 
and that in most natural ways, a moral in- 
fluence which should pervade all Cities and all 



52 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

States. But they must first be taught what 
Christianity really is, and learn to distinguish 
between religion and the Church. After that, 
if they be taught their lesson well, they will 
return to honour both. 

Our fathers made much of "meetness" for 
Heaven. By prayer and fasting, by self-ex- 
amination and meditation they sought to fit 
themselves " for the inheritance of the saints in 
light." Important beyond measure in their 
fitting place are these exercises of the soul. 
But whether alone they fit men for the inherit- 
ance of the saints depends on what a saint is. 
If a saint is a devotee and not a citizen, if 
Heaven is a cathedral and not a City, then 
these things do fit for Heaven. But if life 
means action, and Heaven service ; if spiritual 
graces are acquired for use and not for orna- 
ment, then devotional forms have a deeper 



at 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. S3 

function. The Puritan preachers were wont to 
tell their people to " practise dying." Yes; but 
what is dying ? It is going to a City. And 
what is required of those who would go to a 
City ? The practice of Citizenship — the due 
employment of the unselfish talents, the devel- 
opment of public spirit, the payment of the 
full tax to the great brotherhood, the subordi- 
nation of personal aims to the common good. 
And where are these to be learned ? Here ; 
in Cities here. There is no other way to learn 
them. There is no Heaven to those who have 
not learned them. 

No Church however holy, no priest however 
earnest, no book however sacred, can transfer to 
any human character the capacities of Citizen- 
ship — those capacities which in the very nature 
of things are necessities to those who would live 
in the kingdom of God. The only preparation 



54 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

which multitudes seem to make for Heaven is 
for its Judgment Bar. What will they do in 
its streets ? What have they learned of Citi- 
zenship ? What have they practised of love ? 
How like are they to its Lord ? To " practise 
dying " is to practise living. Earth is the re- 
hearsal for Heaven. The eternal beyond is the 
eternal here. The street-life, the home-life, the 
business-life, the City-life in all the varied range 
of its activity, are an apprenticeship for the 
City of God. There is no other apprenticeship 
for it. To know how to serve Christ in these 
is to " practise dying." 

To move among the people on the common 
street ; to meet them in the market-place on 
equal terms; to live among them not as saint 
or monk, but as brother-man with brother-man; 
to serve God not with form or ritual, but in the 
free impulse of a soul ; to bear the burdens of 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 55 

society and relieve its needs; to carry on the 
multitudinous activities of the City — social, 
commercial, political, philanthropic — in Christ's 
spirit and for His ends : this is the religion of 
the Son of Man, and the only meetness for 
Heaven which has much reality in it. 

No, the Church with all its splendid equip- 
ment, the cloister with all its holy opportunity, 
are not the final instruments for fitting men for 
Heaven. The City, in many of its functions, 
is a greater Church than the Church. It is 
amid the whirr of its machinery and in the 
discipline of its life that the souls of men are 
really made. How great its opportunity is we 
are few of us aware. It is such slow work get- 
ting better, the daily round is so very common, 
our ideas of a heavenly life are so unreal and 
mystical, that even when the highest Heaven 
lies all around us, when we might touch it, and 



56 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

dwell in it every day we live, we almost fail to 
see that it is there. The Heaven of our child- 
hood, the spectacular Heaven, the Heaven 
which is a place, so dominates thought even in 
our maturer years, that we are slow to learn the 
fuller truth that Heaven is a state. But John, 
who is responsible before all other teachers for 
the dramatic view of Heaven, has not failed in 
this very allegory to proclaim the further les- 
son. Having brought all his scenery upon the 
stage and pictured a material Heaven of almost 
unimaginable splendour, the seer turns aside be- 
fore he closes for a revelation of a profounder 
kind. Within the Heavenly City he opens the 
gate of an inner Heaven. It is the spiritual 
Heaven — the Heaven of those who serve. 
With two flashes of his pen he tells the Citi- 
zens of God all that they will ever need or care 
to know as to what Heaven really means* 



2&± 

I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. $7 

" His servants shall serve Him ; and they shall 
see His Face ; and His Character shall be writ- 
ten on their characters" 

They shall see His face. Where ? In the 
City. In Eternity ? No ; to-morrow. Those 
who serve in any City cannot help continually 
seeing Christ. He is there with them. He is 
there before them. They cannot but meet. 
No gentle word is ever spoken that Christ's 
voice does not also speak ; no meek deed is ever 
done that the unsummoned Vision does not 
there and then appear. Whoso, in whatsoever 
place, receiveth a little child in My name re- 
ceiveth Me. 

This is how men get to know God — by doing 
His will. And there is no other way. And 
this is how men become like God ; how God's 
character becomes written upon men's char- 
acters. Acts react upon souls. Good acts 



•58 THE CITY WITHOUT A CHURCH. 

make good men ; just acts, just men ; kind acts, 
kind men ; divine acts, divine men. And there 
is no other way of becoming good, just, kind, 
divine. And there is no Heaven for those who 
have not become these. For these are Heaven. 
When John's Heaven faded from his sight, 
and the prophet woke to the desert waste of 
Patmos, did he grudge to exchange the Heaven 
of his dream for the common tasks around 
him ? Was he not glad to be alive, and there ? 
And would he not straightway go to the City, 
to whatever struggling multitude his prison- 
rock held, if so be that he might prove his 
dream and among them see His Face ? Trav- 
eller to God's last City, be glad that you are 
alive. Be thankful for the City at your door 
and for the chance to build its walls a little 
nearer Heaven before you go. Pray for yet a 
little while to redeem the wasted years. And 



2.47 



I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE. 



59 



week by week as you go forth from worship, 
and day by day as you awake to face this great 
and needy world, learn to " seek a City " there, 
and in the service of its neediest citizen find 
Heaven. 




ztl 



BOOKS FOR BOYS 



Copyright 
JAMES POTT & CO. 

1891 



This address was delivered in Glasgow, 
at the City Hall, to the Members of the 
Boys' Brigade, some fourteen hundred 
boys being present. It is now published 
in convenient form for the boys of America. 



2/7' 



"FIRST!". 

INTRODUCTORY. 




fHORTLY after noon, one 
Sunday lately, it was evi- 
dent to dwellers in the city 
of Glasgow that some event 
of importance was about to take place 
in connection with the Boys' Brigade. 
Boy after boy, wearing the now 
familiar uniform of cap, belt, and 
haversack, was seen making his way 
to the private parade, where his 
Company was to fall in, preparatory 
to marching to the City Hall to take 
part in the Eastern District Church 
Parade. 

No sooner were the doors opened 
than the Companies commenced to 



4 Introductory. 

enter, and were marched in file id 
their respective seats. At 2.10 every 
Company had arrived, and the scene, 
as viewed from the platform, was now 
a most impressive one, the entire 
area of the hall being- filled by the 
boys, some fourteen hundred strong, 
who looked soldiers every inch as 
they sat in their smart uniform. 

The galleries were crowded with 
an interested audience, and the plat- 
form was also filled, principally by a 
large choir. Five minutes before the 
hour the organist took his seat at 
the organ for the opening voluntary, 
and on the first note being touched 
the hum of voices was instantly 
hushed, and on a signal being given 
every cap was at once removed. 

Punctually at 2.30 Professor Drum- 
mond stepped upon the platform, 
accompanied by several members of 
the Battalion Executive Committee. 



273 



Introductory. 5 

Every boy was attention when 
Professor Drummond gave out the 
Hundredth Psalm ; and, heartily as 
one has often heard the familiar 
words sung", it is questionable if ever 
it was rendered with greater effect. 

The rustle of leaves which followed 
when the sixth chapter of S. Mat- 
thew was given out, indicated that 
the order for every boy to bring 
his Bible had not been overlooked. 
The hymn, " Jesus shall reign," was 
then sung with heartiness. When 
seats had been resumed the Profess- 
or raised his hand, and immediately 
every head was bowed, and the si- 
lence was most impressive as the 
prayer was offered. The next hymn, 
" Soldiers of Christ, arise ! " being an 
evident favorite, was rendered with 
great vigor. 

Professor Drummond then said : 
"The 47th Glasgow Company will 



6 Introductory. 

stand." Instantly a large Company 
in front rose. " The nth Glasgow 
Company will also stand," and a 
Company near the back of the hall 
rose. These Companies were asked 
to turn to the chapter that had been 
read, the sixth of S. Matthew, and to 
read in unison the verse before the 
end : " Seek ye first the kingdom of 
God, and his righteousness / and all 
these things shall be added unto you. 1 ' 
The Companies were told to sit down, 
and Professor Drummond proceeded 
with his address as follows : 



.If 



"FIRST!" 

THE ADDRESS. 




HAVE three heads to give 
you. The first is " Geo- 
graphy/' the second is 

" Arithmetic," and the third is 

" Grammar." 

GEOGRAPHY. 

First. Geography tells us where 
to find places. Where is the king- 
dom of God ? It is said that when a 
Prussian officer was killed in the 
Franco-Prussian war, a map of 
France was very often found in his 
pocket When we wish to occupy a 



8 "First!" 

country, we ought to know its ge- 
ography. Now, where is the king- 
dom of God? A boy over there 
says, " It is in heaven." No ; it is 
not in heaven. Another boy says, 
" It is in the Bible." No ; it is not 
in the Bible. Another boy says, " It 
must be in the Church." No ; it is 
not in the Church. Heaven is only 
the capital of the kingdom of God ; 
the Bible is the Guide-book to it ; the 
Church is the weekly Parade of those 
who belong to it. If you would turn 
to the seventeenth chapter of S. 
Luke you will find out where the 
kingdom of God really is. " The 
kingdom of God is within you " — 
within you. The kingdom of God is 
inside people. 

I remember once taking a walk by 
the river near where the Falls of Ni- 
agara are, and I noticed a remarkable 
figure walking along the river bank. 



2/77 



Geography. 9 

I had been some time in America. I 
had seen black men, and red men, 
and yellow men, and white men ; 
black men, the Negroes ; red men, 
the Indians ; yellow men, the Chin- 
ese ; white men, the Americans. But 
this man looked quite different in his 
dress from anything I had ever seen. 
When he came a little closer, I saw 
he was wearing a kilt ; when he came 
a little nearer still, I saw that he was 
dressed exactly like a Highland sol- 
dier. When he came quite near, I 
said to him, " What are you doing 
here ? " " Why should I not be 
here ? " he said. "Don't you know 
this is British soil ? When you cross 
the river you come into Canada/' 
This soldier was thousands of miles 
from England, and yet he was in the 
kingdom of England. Wherever 
there is an English heart beating loy- 
al to the Queen of Britain, there is 



IO "First!" 

England. Wherever there is a boy 
whose heart is loyal to the King of 
the kingdom of God, the kingdom 
of God is within him. 

What is the kingdom of God ? 
Every kingdom has its exports, its 
products. Go down to the river 
here, and you will find ships coming 
in with cotton ; you know they come 
from America. You will find ships 
with tea ; you know they are from 
China. Ships with wool ; you know 
they come from Australia. Ships 
with sugar ; you know they come 
from Java. What comes from the 
kingdom of God ? Again we must 
refer to our Guide-book. Turn to 
Romans, and we shall find what the 
kingdom of God is. I will read it: 
" The kingdom of God is righte- 
ousness, peace, joy " — three things. 
"The kingdom of God is righteous- 
ness, peace, joy." Righteousness, 



ZW 



Geography. I I 

of course, is just doing what is right. 
Any boy who does what is right has 
the kingdom of God within him. 
Any boy who, instead of being quar- 
relsome, lives at peace with the other 
boys, has the kingdom of God with- 
in him. Any boy whose heart is filled 
with joy because he does what is 
right, has the kingdom of God within 
him. The kingdom of God is not go- 
ing to religious meetings, and hear- 
ing strange religious experiences : the 
kingdom of God is doing what is right 
— living at peace with all men, be- 
ing filled with joy in the Holy Ghost. 
Boys, if you are going to be Chris- 
tians, be Christians as boys, and not 
as your grandmothers. A grand- 
mother has to be a Christian as a 
grandmother, and that is the right 
and the beautiful thing for her ; but 
if you cannot read your Bible by the 
hour as your grandmother can, of 



12 "First!" 

delight in meetings as she can, don't 
think you are necessarily a bad boy. 
When you are your grandmother's 
age you will have your grandmother's 
kind of religion. Meantime, be a 
Christian as a boy. Live a boy's 
life. Do the straight thing ; seek 
the kingdom of righteousness and 
honor and truth. Keep the peace 
with the boys about you, and be 
filled with the joy of being a loyal, 
and simple, and natural, and boy-like 
servant of Christ. 

You can very easily tell a house, 
or a workshop, or an office where the 
kingdom of God is not. The first 
thing you see in that place is that the 
"straight thing" is not always done* 
Customers do not get fair play. You 
are in danger of learning to cheat 
and to lie. Better, a thousand times, 
to starve than to stay in a place 
where you cannot do what is right 



a«» 



Geography. \ 3 

♦ 

Or, when you go into your work- 
shop, you find everybody sulky, 
touchy, and ill-tempered ; everybody 
at daggers' drawn with everybody 
else ; some of the men not on speak- 
ing terms with some of the others, 
and the whole feel of the place miser- 
able and unhappy. The kingdom 
of God is not there, for it is peace. 
It is the kingdom of the Devil that 
is anger and wrath and malice. 

If you want to get the kingdom of 
God into your workshop, or into 
your home, let the quarrelling bt 
stopped. Live in peace and har- 
mony and brotherliness with every- 
one. For the kingdom of God is a 
kingdom of brothers. It is a great 
society, founded by Jesus Christ, of 
all the people who try to be like 
Him, and live to make the world bet- 
ter and sweeter and happier. Wher- 
ever a boy is trying to do that, in the 



14 "First!" 

house or in the street, in the work- 
shop or on the baseball field, there is 
the kingdom of God. And every 
boy, however small or obscure or 
poor, who is seeking that, is a mem- 
ber of it. You see now, I hope, 
what the kingdom is. 



ARITHMETIC. 

I pass, therefore, to the second 
head: What was it ? " Arithmetic/' 
Are there any arithmetic words in 
this text? " Added," says one boy. 
Quite right, added. What other 
arithmetic word? " First." Yes, 
first — " first," "added. ,r Now, don't 
you think you could not have any- 
thing better to seek " first " than the 
things I have named — to do what is 
right, to live at peace, and be always 
making those about you happy ? 
You see at once why Christ tells us 



3.S3 



Arithmetic. 15 

to seek these things first — because 
they are the best worth seeking. Do 
you know anything better than these 
three things, anything happier, pur- 
er, nobler? If you do, seek them 
first. But if you do not, seek first 
the kingdom of God. I am not here 
this afternoon to tell you to be reli- 
gious. You know that. I am not 
here to tell you to seek the kingdom 
of God. I have come to tell you 
to seek the kingdom of God first. 
First. Not many people do that. 
They put a little religion into their 
life — once a week, perhaps. They 
might just as well let it alone. It is 
not worth seeking the kingdom of 
God unless we seek it first. Sup- 
pose you take the helm out of a ship 
and hang it over the bow, and send 
that ship to sea, will it ever reach the 
other side ? Certainly not. It will 
drift about anyhow. Keep religion 



16 "First!" 

in its piace, and it will take you 
straight through life, and straight to 
your Father in heaven when life is 
over. But if you do not put it in its 
place, you may just as well have noth- 
ing to do with it. Religion out of its 
place in a human life is the most mis- 
erable thing in the world. There 
is nothing that requires so much to 
be kept in its place as religion, and 
its place is what? second? third? 
" First." Boys, carry that home with 
you to-day —first the kingdom of 
God. Make it so that it will be nat- 
ural to you to think about that the 
very first thing. 

There was a boy in Glasgow ap- 
prenticed to a gentleman who made 
telegraphs. The gentleman told me 
this himself. One day this boy was 
up on the top of a four-story house 
with a number of men fixing up a tel* 
egraph-wire. The work was all but 



n< 



Arithmetic. 17 

done. It was getting late, and the 
men said they were going away 
home, and the boy was to nip off the 
ends of the wire himself. Before go- 
ing down they told him to be sure to 
go back to the workshop, when he 
was finished, with his master's tools. 
" Do not leave any of them lying 
about, whatever you do, " said the 
foreman. The boy climbed up the 
pole and began to nip off the ends of 
the wire. It was a very cold winter 
night, and the dusk was gathering. 
He lost his hold and fell upon the 
slates, slid down, and then over and 
over to the ground below. A clothes- 
rope, stretched across the "green" 
on to which he was just about to fall, 
caught him on the chest and broke 
his fall ; but the shock was terrible, 
and he lay unconscious among some 
clothes upon the green. An old wom- 
an came out ; seeing her rope brok* 



1 8 "First!" 

en and the clothes all soiled, thought 
the boy was drunk, shook him, 
scolded him, and went for the police- 
man. And the boy with the shaking 
came back to consciousness, rubbed 
his eyes, and got upon his feet. 
What do you think he did ? He stag- 
gered, half blind, away up the stairs. 
He climbed the ladder. He got on 
to the roof of the house. He gath- 
ered up his tools, put them into his 
basket, took them down, and when he 
got to the ground again, fainted dead 
away. Just then the policeman came, 
saw there was something seriously 
wrong, and carried him away to the 
hospital, where he lay for some time. 
I am glad to say he got better. What 
was his first thought at that terrible 
moment? His duty. He was not 
thinking of himself; he was thinking 
about his master. First, the king- 
dom of God. 



>«"» 



Arithmetic. 19 

But there is another arithmetic 
word. What is it? "Added." There 
is not one boy here who does not 
know the difference between addition 
and subtraction. Now, that is a very 
important difference in religion, be- 
cause — and it is a very strange thing 
— very few people know the difference 
when they begin to talk about reli- 
gion. They often tell boys that if 
they seek the kingdom of God, ev- 
erything else is going to be subtracted 
from them. They tell them that they 
are going to become gloomy, miser- 
able, and will lose everything that 
makes a boy's life worth living — that 
they will have to stop baseball and 
story-books, and become little old 
men, and spend all their time in go- 
ing to meetings and in singing hymns. 
Now, that is not true. Christ never 
said anything like that. Christ says 
we are to " Seek first the kingdom 



20 "First!" 

of God," and everything else worth 
having is to be added unto us. If 
there is anything I would like you to 
take away with you this afternoon, 
it is these two arithmetic words— 
" first " and " added." I do not mean 
by added that if you become religious 
you are all going to become rich. 
Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out 
the shop to-morrow morning, finds 
sixpence lying among the orange- 
boxes. Well, nobody has missed it. 
He puts it in his pocket, and it begins 
to burn a hole there. By breakfast- 
time he wishes that sixpence were in 
his master's pocket. And by and by 
he goes to his master. He says (to 
himself, and not to his master), " I 
was at the Boys' Brigade yesterday, 
and I was told to seek yf?^/ that which 
was right." Then he says to his 
master, ' Please, sir, here is sixpence 
that I found upon the floor." The 



ltf 



Arithmetic. 21 

master puts it in the "tin." What 
has the boy got in his pocket ? Noth- 
ing* ; but he has got the kingdom of 
God in his heart. He has laid up 
treasure in heaven, which is of in- 
finitely more worth than sixpence. 
Now, that boy does not find a shilling 
on his way home. I have known that 
happen, but that is not what is meant 
by "add'ng." It does not mean that 
God is going to pay him in his own 
coin, for He pays in better coin. 

Yet I remember once hearing of a 
boy who was paid in both ways. He 
was very, very poor. He lived in a 
foreign country, and his mother said 
to him one day that he must go into 
the great city and start in business, 
and she took his coat and cut it open 
and sewed between the lining and 
the coat forty golden dinars, which 
she had saved up for many years to 
start him in life. She told him to 



22 "First!" 

take care of robbers as he went 
across the desert ; and as he was go- 
ing out of the door she said : " My 
boy, I have only two words for you 
— ' Fear God, and never tell a lie/ ' 
The boy started ofC and toward 
evening he saw glittering in the dis- 
tance the minarets of the great city, 
but between the city and himself he 
saw a cloud of dust, it came nearer ; 
presently he saw that it was a band 
of robbers. One of the robbers left 
the rest and rode toward him, and 
said : " Boy, what have you got ? " 
And the boy looked him in the face 
and said : " I have forty golden 
dinars sewed up in my coat." And 
the robber laughed and wheeled 
round his horse and went away back. 
He would not believe the boy. 
Presently another robber came, and 
he said : " Boy, what have you got ? " 
" Forty golden dinars sewed up in 



Ill 



Arithmetic. 23 

my coat." The robber said : " The 
boy is a fool/' and wheeled his horse 
and rode away back. By and by the 
robber captain came, and he said: 
" Boy, what have you got ? " "I 
have forty golden dinars sewed up 
in my coat." And the robber dis- 
mounted and put his hand over the 
boy's breast, felt something round, 
counted one, two, three, four, five, till 
he counted out the forty golden coins. 
He looked the boy in the face, and 
said : " Why did you tell me that ? 
The boy said : " Because of God and 
my mother." And the robber leaned 
on his spear and thought, and said : 
" Wait a moment." He mounted his 
horse, rode back to the rest of the 
robbers, and came back in about five 
minutes with his dress changed. 
This time he looked not like a rob- 
ber, but like a merchant. He took 
the boy up on his horse and said: 



24 "First!" 

" My boy, I have long wanted to do 
something for my God and for my 
mother, and I have this moment re- 
nounced my robber's life. I am also 
a merchant. I have a large business 
house in the city. I want you to 
come and live with me, to teach me 
about your God ; and you will be 
rich, and your mother some day will 
come and live with us." And it all 
happened. By seeking first the king- 
dom of God, all these things were 
added unto him. 

Boys, banish forever from your 
minds the idea that religion is sub- 
traction. It does not tell us to give 
things up, but rather gives us some- 
thing so much better that they give 
themselves up. When you see a 
boy on the street whipping a top, 
you know, perhaps, that you could 
not make that boy happier than by 
giving him a top, a whip, and half an 



:-?> 



Arithmetic. 2$ 

hour to whip it. But next birthday, 
when he looks back, he says, " What 
a goose I was last year to be de- 
lighted with a top ; what I want now 
is a baseball bat. Then when he be- 
comes an old man he does not care 
in the least for a baseball bat, he 
wants rest, and a snug fireside, and a 
newspaper every day. He wonders 
how he could ever have taken up 
his thoughts with baseball bats and 
whipping-tops. Now, when a boy 
becomes a Christian, he grows out of 
the evil things one by one — that is to 
say, if they are really evil — which he 
used to set his heart upon (of course 
I do not mean baseball bats, for they 
are not evils) ; and so instead of tell- 
ing people to give up things, we are 
safer to tell them to " Seek first the 
kingdom of God," and then they will 
get new things and better things, and 
the old things will drop off of them- 



26 "First!" 

selves. This is what is meant by the 
" new heart.'' It means that God 
puts into us new thoughts and new 
wishes, and we become quite differ- 
ent boys. 

GRAMMAR. 

Lastly, and very shortly. What 
was the third head ? " Grammar." 
Right : Grammar. Now, I require 
a clever boy to answer the next 
question. What is the verb ? " Seek." 
Very good : " Seek." What mood is 
it in? " Imperative mood." What 
does that mean? " Command." You 
boys of the Boys' Brigade know 
what commands are. What is the 
soldier's first lesson ? " Obedience." 
Have you obeyed this command ? 
Remember the imperative mood of 
these words, " Seek first the king- 
dom of God." This is the command 
of your King. It must be done. I 



544 



Grammar. 27 

have been trying to show you what a 
splendid thing it is ; what a reasona- 
ble thing it is ; what a happy thing it 
is ; but beyond all these reasons it is 
a thing that must be done, because 
we are commanded to do it by our 
Captain. It is one of the finest things 
about the Boys' Brigade that it al- 
ways appeals to Christ as its highest 
Officer, and takes its commands from 
Him. Now, there is His command 
to seek first the kingdom of God. 
Have you done it? " Well," I know 
some boys will say, " we are going 
to have a good time, enjoy life, and 
then we are going to seek — last — the 
kingdom of God." Now that is 
mean ; it is nothing else than mean 
for a boy to take all the good gifts 
that God has given him, and then 
give Him nothing back in return but 
his wasted life. 

God wants boys' lives, not only 



28 "First!" 

their souls. It is for active service 
soldiers are drilled and trained and 
fed and armed. That is why you 
and I are in the world at all— not to 
prepare to go ou _ of it some day ; 
but to serve God actively in it now. 
It is monstrous and shameful and 
cowardly to talk of seeking the king- 
dom last. It is shirking duty, aban- 
doning one's rightful post, playing 
into the enemy's hand by doing noth- 
ing to turn his flank. Every hour a 
Kingdom is coming in your heart, in 
your home, in the world near you, be 
it a kingdom of darkness or a kingdom 
of light. You are placed where you 
are, in a particular business, in a par- 
ticular street, to help on there the 
kingdom of God. You cannot do 
that when you are old and ready to 
die. By that time your companions 
will have fought their fight, and lost 
or won. If they lose, will you not be 



Grammar. 29 

sorry that you did not help them? 
Will you not regret that only at the 
last you helped the kingdom of God ? 
Perhaps you will not be able to do it 
then. And then your life has been 
lost indeed. 

Very few people have the oppor- 
tunity to seek the kingdom of God 
at the end. Christ, knowing all that, 
knowing that religion was a thing for 
our life, not merely for our death- bed, 
has laid this command upon us now : 
" Seek first the kingdom of God." I 
am going to leave you with this text 
itself. Every Brigade boy in the 
world should obey it. 

Boys, before you go to work to- 
morrow, before you go to sleep to- 
night, before you go to the Sunday- 
school this afternoon, before you go 
out of the door of the City Hall, re- 
solve that, God helping you, you are 
going to seek first the kingdom of 



30 "First!" 

God. Perhaps some boys here are 
deserters ; they began once before 
to serve Christ, and they deserted. 
Come back again, come back again 
to-day. Others have never enlisted 
at all. Will you not do it now ? You 
are old enough to decide. And the 
grandest moment of a boy's life if 
that moment when he decides to 

Seefc first tbe ftttifl&om of Qob 



2<tf 



BAXTER'S 

Second Innings 



Copyright, 1891, 
By HENRY DRUMMOND. 



3o 



PREFACE. 



I think the best thing I can do, if I 
must make a Preface, is to print this letter 
from Baxter's small brother to another 
boy : — 

Dear Charlie, 

Would you believe it ? some fellow's written a Book 
about Fred ! I think he's in an awful wax. N.B. 
The Book's a swindle. Except the story of a Castle 
(and one about a soldier or something) it's all yarn. 
I've not read it. What a licking we gave the Junior 
Pelican ! I made 13, but they bowl frightful sneaks. 
Please tell Whitemouse to send me the crib to Caesar 
instanter. 

Yours ever, 

MIKE. 

P.S. Don't cut me for sending that book about Fred. 
I had to. And for my sake don't open it till Sunday. 

P. P.S. Monday. I've read it. It gets awfully seri- 
ous some places. By the way, tell Whitemouse never 
to mind that crib just now. 

M. 



3*3 



BAXTER'S SECOND INNINGS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BAXTER'S FIRST INNINGS. 

" Man in ! " cried the umpire, and the 
fielders fell into their places. The Bow- 
ler* stepped back a pace and poised the 
ball in his fingers. You never saw Power 
more clearly written on any face — it was 
almost weird ; and his arm worked like a 
steel spring. The new Batsman, on the 
other hand, was only a boy. His cricket 
jacket was painfully new, and so were his 
cap and wondrously varnished bat. And 
the expression on the great Bowler's face 
when the " man in " walked to the wicket 
was strange to see. 

This was Baxter's first great match. I 
suppose this accounts for it that he did 
not recognize the Bowler ; but to those of 
the spectators who did, the casual way in 
which he handled his bat was really omin- 

* i. e. The Pitcher. 



8 Baxter s Second Innings, 

ous. " Does that greenhorn know he's 
playing a match?" growled one of them. 
" If he doesn't wake up I'll back the first 
straight ball to finish him. The ass hasn't 
even his pads on." 

At that moment the first ball whizzed 
down the pitch, and if it had been a hair's- 
breadth more to the right it would have 
been all over with the new Batsman. 
The second ball seemed to the spectators 
a hundred times swifter than the first, 
but what exactly happened no one ever 
quite understood. Whether the ball rose 
on an inequality of the ground, or glanced 
off the top of the bat, is not quite certain, 
but in any case the boy missed when he 
struck at it, and it caught him sideways 
on the head, and the next moment he lay 
motionless across the pitch. 

When he became conscious he found 
himself lying in the Pavilion on a pile of 
coats. " It was a narrow shave," he heard 
the doctor say, " Whatever made the 
young idiot run into a ball like that ? " 

" He did not know the bowling, doc- 
tor," said the Captain, who was holding 
up his head ; " it's his first match. I hope 
the wound's not serious?" 

" Just missed the temple," replied the 
doctor. " If it had struck there he was a 
dead man — sure. As it is, it may smart a 
bit, but that may be all." 



lots 



How He was Put Out. g 

" Doctor," whispered the patient, sud- 
denly opening his eyes, " shall I be better 
next Saturday ? " 

" Why ? you young imbecile." 

" Because I would like a second in- 
nings." 

" Innings ! '' exclaimed the doctor, who 
pretended to be a little gruff sometimes. 
" You may get a ball — perhaps two ; 1 
should not call that an innings." 

*' It's about all I deserve," said the vic- 
tim, drearily. 

"We'll see," whispered the Captain. 
" Perhaps ■" 

But here the carriage came to carry the 
disabled cricketer home. 

Some think Baxter dreamed what is 
now to be told, for the Sunday which fol- 
lowed that Saturday afternoon was very 
hot, and the boy lay in a dozy sort of state 
in the south bedroom. But some think 
the Captain, who came into see him while 
the others were at church, had something 
to do with it. The Captain was not only 
the most brilliant cricketer in the county, 
but the best man in it, and though he was 
seldom known to talk like this, Baxter 
always quoted the Captain as if the inter- 
view which follows was a real report of 
what he said. 



CHAPTER II. 

SWIFTS : AND THE STORY OF THE CAP- 
TAIN'S SHILLING. 

" Yes, my boy," began the Captain, sit- 
ting down beside his sofa, " you made a 
fool of yourself; but you did not know. 
Some one should have put you up to it. 
If you will not think me bumptious, I will 
tell you something about that fellow's 
bowling." 

" Thank you," said the boy, " I believe 
I could do better if I only knew his form. 
He's a regular demon." 

I shall begin by telling you his name," 
said the Captain. " It is Temptation." 

" Tim who?" said the boy. 

" Temptation," repeated the Captain. 

" Oh ! " said the boy, " I hope you're 
not going to be religious. I thought we 
were talking about games." 

" So we are," replied the Captain, 
cheerily. " We are talking of the game 
of Life. You know you asked me last 
night if you were going to live. If you 
are to live I had better tell you something 
about the game. Life is simply a cricket 



The Captain s Shilling. u 

match — with Temptation as Bowler. He's 
the fellow who takes nearly every boy's 
wicket some time or other. But perhaps 
you can't stand this, Baxter. I'll stop it." 

" No," said Baxter, " I'm as right as a 
trivet. Please go on. I know you won't 
preach." 

" Well," continued the Captain, " stop 
me if I bore you. You see every boy has 
three wickets"" to defend. The first is 
Duty, the second Honour, the third Un- 
selfishness. I " 

" That looks mightily like preaching," 
interrupted Baxter. " Sermon with three 
heads : First, Duty. Second " 

" No, my boy, I'm not in that line — I 
am going to tell you about the bowling. 
I have three heads, but not these." 

"What are they ?" 

" Swifts, Slows, and Screws." 

" That's better. Excuse me," apologized 
the boy. 

" Now here is what I call a swift. Last 
winter I was ordering some lemons for a 

* For those who never happen to have seen the great 
English game it may be explained that the Wickets are 
three sticks rather over two feet high, planted erect in 
the ground about a couple of inches or so apart. On the 
top of these, joining them loosely, are poised two other 
little pieces, the Bails. This little "citadel'' the batsman 
has to defend against the bowler, and if any part of it is 
"destroyed' by the ball, he is "out.'' Every time he 
hits the ball to a distance, he runs to another " citadel" 
some distance off, and each "run" counts one in his 
favour. 



12 Baxter's Second Linings. 

football match, at S , the grocer's. By 

mistake I dropped some loose silver on 
the floor, and the pieces went scurrying 
all over the place. One piece — a shilling 
— rolled over to where the message-boy 
was filling a basket, and quick as lightning 
he covered it with his foot and began to 
back against the sugar-barrels till he had 
it safely stowed away. Presently, after I 
had gathered up the seven or eight other 
pieces and was completing my purchase, 
he stooped down and pretended to tie his 
shoe. Then he whisked the coin into his 
pocket, whistled ' Rule Britannia,' and 
went on with his work. 

" I said nothing, though I saw the 
whole game. There stood the culprit 
with his middle-stump — Honour — as clean 
bowled as I ever saw it done. It was a 
downright ugly theft, and but for one 
thing I should have exposed him there 
and then. That one thing was that the 
ball which took him was a szvift. The 
best of boys are sometimes taken with 
swifts. It was a swift that bowled out 
Peter when the girl sprang that question 
on him the night the cock crowed. As a 
matter of fact I found out that this boy 
was a fairly decent fellow, and a Sunday- 
school scholar. I waited two days to let 
the thing right itself — for that often hap- 
pens with ' swift ' catastrophes. Then I 



The Captain's Shilling. 13 

waylaid the boy where I could talk to him 
without being seen. It was as I expected. 
The poor soul had spent the two most 
miserable days of his life. If he had had 
ten seconds to think what he was doing 
instead of the tenth of a second he would 
never have done it. As for the shilling, 
this penitent thief had bought twelve 
stamps with it and was watching his 
chance to post them to my home. 

"How to play swifts?" the Captain 
went on, " that's not so easily said. You 
see the situation is something like this : A 
boy will tell a sudden lie where he would 
have spoken the truth if he had had a min- 
ute to consider. Well, this means that he 
is really two boys, a good boy and a bad 
boy. Now, the bad boy is usually on the 
spot first. It takes a few seconds for the 
other, as it were, to come up ; and before 
he arrives the mischief is done. The thing 
to do, therefore, is to hurry up the good 
boy." 

" But why should the bad boy turn up 
first ? " 

" You will understand it if we call them 
the new boy and the old boy. I suspect 
the bad boy has the start at birth. The 
new boy is born later. The thing is to 
grow the new boy and starve the old one 
till he is too thin and broken down to do 
much harm. We all know boys who could 



14 Baxter's Second Innings. 

not do a mean thing. It is no effort to 
them not to do it; they have so nourished 
the better nature that it would be impos- 
sible to do it. What helps a cricketer in 
playing swifts is largely the sort of phys- 
ical man he is. All his muscles are so up 
to the mark, and his faculties so alive and 
braced that he can rise to anything at a 
moment's notice. He plays a ball by in- 
stinct rather than by premeditation." 

" You mean that swifts must be pre- 
pared for beforehand rather than when 
they come." 

" Pretty much. The time to get ready 
a ship for the storm is not when the hurri- 
cane is on, but when the planks are being 
picked, and the bolts driven home in the 
dockyard. Build a boy of sound timber 
and he'll weather most things." 

" But what if the swifts come straight 
at your head like that one yesterday," sug- 
gested Baxter. 

" Ah," said the Captain, "it's almost too 
ignominious to say it, but when that hap- 
pens you had better get out of the way. It 
may look cowardly, but it is not really. 
There are temptations so awful that the 
strong thing to do is simply to step aside 
and let them pass. A lion won't face a 
blaze, though any ignorant baby will. No, 
Baxter; some balls you can score off, and 
some you can only stand still and block; 



31! 



The Captain s Shilling. 15 

some you can slip for three, and some you 
can drive over the ropes for six. But some 
— well, the best thing you can do is sim- 
ply to duck your head." 

u Pity we couldn't be all over pads," 
laughed Baxter. " Head pads wouldn't 
be bad." 

" And forget to put them on," smiled 
the Captain. " Yes, there are lots of safe- 
guards and we cannot put on too many, 
but unfortunately they don't cover every- 
thing. I like pads because they have a sort 
of defensive feel. You seem rather to look 
down on them, Baxter." 

" Yes," said Baxter, ruefully, " because 
Pm an ass." 



CHAPTER III. 

SLOWS : AND THE CASTLE THAT WAS 
TAKEN WITH A SINGLE GUN. 

Here Baxter's beef-tea came in. This 
was the old cook's institution — everybody 
who stayed at home from church had al- 
ways to take beef-tea. While he was sip- 
ping it the monologue went on. 

" When the Bowler sees you are up to 
swifts," resumed the Captain, "he turns 
on slows. What makes them deadly is 
that they look so insufferably stupid. 
They come dribbling along the pitch and 
you slog at them gaily — with the probable 
alternative of being ' caught' if you hit, or 
' bowled ' if you miss. Good slows are 
about as diabolical as anything in that re- 
gion can be — and that's saying a good deal. 
The average boy is fairly proof against a 
very big temptation ; it is the little ones 
that play the mischief." 

"How's that?" asked Baxter, laying 
down his cup. 

" We are mostly too proud to go wrong 
in a big way. Notorious sins are bad form ; 
but when quiet temptations come, which no 
one knows about, even the strongest may 



The Castle. ij 

break down. Then of course there's the 
other side. One thing that keeps us up in 
great matches is the applause of the spec- 
tators. But on the week-days, when we 
are practising alone against the slow mo- 
notony of a private sin, there is no crowd to 
cheer us when we win or to hiss at us when 
we lose. These are really the great days, 
Baxter. They are the decisive battles of 
a boy's life." 

" But must a fellow meet every ball," 
said Baxter, "every miserable little slow? 
If he's a good all round man, is that not 
enough ? " 

"What do you mean ?" said the Cap- 
tain. " Do you mean that if we are ninety- 
nine parts good it does not matter if the 
hundredth part is a little shady ?" 

" I know I'm wrong," said Baxter, " hnt 
surely we are not meant to be all s'aint ? 
Take your three wickets, for instance. I'm 
quite aware that if one is down the rest 
are down ; but suppose a fellow keeps all 
these fairly standing — Duty, Honour, Un- 
selfishness — what more need he care 
for ? " 

" Baxter, you have forgotten something. 
There are more than wickets." 

" What ? " 

" Bails," said the Captain. 

Baxter was silent. 

" I've lost several matches that way, 
Baxter, Stumps all standing ; only one 



1 8 Baxter s Second Innings. 

miserable inch of a bail off. No, we must 
play a whole game — no sneaking." 

" But I'll tell you something more. I 
believe Temptation sometimes does noth- 
ing but bowl at the bails. Some players 
are so much on their guard that it would 
be useless trying anything else. I suppose 
you know that every boy has some one 
weak point to which nearly all the bowl- 
ing is directed." 

" How do you mean ? " 

" Well, each boy has his own Tempta- 
tion — different in different cases, but al- 
ways some one thing which keeps coming 
back and back — back and back day after 
day till he is tired and sick. What though 
he score off all the other balls if this one 
takes him ? It's not new sins that destroy a 
man ; it's the drip, drip, drip of an old one. 

" Have you ever heard of the Castle 
which was taken with a single gun ? It 
stood on the Rhine, and its walls were 
yards thick, and the old knight who lived 
in it laughed when he saw the enemy 
come with only a single cannon. But 
they planted the cannon on a little hill, 
and all day long they loaded and fired, 
and loaded and fired, without ever moving 
the muzzle an inch. Every shot struck 
exactly the same spot on the wall, but the 
first day passed and they had scarcely 
scratched the stone. So the old knight 
drank up his wine cup, and went to his 



31*" 



The Castle. 19 

bed in peace. Day after day the cannon- 
ade went on, and the more they fired the 
louder the knight laughed, and the more 
wine he drank, and the solnider he slept. 
At the end of a week one stone was in 
splinters; in a month the one behind it 
was battered to powder ; in ten months a 
breach was made wide enough for the en- 
emy to enter and capture the Castle. 
That is how a boy's heart is most often 
taken. If I had any advice to offer any- 
body I should say, Beware of the slow 
sins — the old recurring Temptation, which 
is powerful not so much in what it is or in 
what it does once, but in the awful patience 
of its continuance. It is by the ceaseless 
battery of a commonplace Temptation that 
the moral nature is undermined and the 
citadel of great souls won." 

Here the Captain paused. Baxter lay 
very still, as if he had fallen asleep. His 
visitor rose gently and made on tiptoe for 
the door. He was opening it when the 
boy exclaimed : 

" And what about the screws?" 

" I thought you were asleep," said the 
Captain. " I was afraid I bored you." 

" I was never more awake in my life," 
said the boy. " I was thinking. All that's 
new to me. If you don't mind I should 
like to hear the rest." 

"I protest," urged the Captain; " 

but I will at least tell you a story." 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCREWS: AND' WHAT HAPPENED TO BOB 
FOTHERINGHAM. 

"When I was a youngster there was a 
sort of Prize Boy in our village called Bob 
Fotheringham. He came to my mother's 
Sunday Class, and was the best boy in it. 
Everyone liked Bob; he was good at 
everything, and especially clever with his 
fingers, and his father wanted him to fol- 
low his own business of carpenter. But 
Bob had a rich uncle who kept a saloon. 
On busy Saturdays the boy used to go 
there and bear a hand in an amateur sort 
of way. Sometimes a drunken man would 
take a fancy to him and give him money, 
so that Bob learned to get money easily 
and became rather fond of it. Just as he 
finished school his uncle offered to make a 
publican of him. He had no sons of his 
own, and he half promised Bob that one 
day the business would be his. 

" Now, Bob did not like the saloon. But 
how could he lose such a chance ? He need 
not touch drink himself, he argued ; and if 
he did not sell it someone else would. So 
he decided. His parents solemnly warned 
him to let it alone ; but Bob urged that it 
would only be for a few years, and then he 
would set up in some other business and 



i\i 



Screws. 2 1 

do good with the fortune he would make. 
Bob's heart was full of good, and I verily 
believe he meant to end his days by be- 
coming a great philanthropist. 

" But there was a screzv on that ball. A 
screw goes wide at first, and then suddenly 
rounds upon you and twists in among 
your wickets before you know where you 
are. For three or four years Bob lived as 
straight as a parson. When his uncle died 
he found he had to sample what he sold. 
What harm ? Better to sell good stuff 
than bad. The business went swim- 
mingly, and Bob had to sample a good 
deal oftener than he liked. Finally, he 
1 liked ' a good deal oftener than he had to 
sample. After that he was always ' samp- 
ling.' You know the rest. One day a 
bail fell off. Bob thought no one noticed 
it and went on with the game for a year or 
two. Then a wicket fell — Duty; then 
Honour. Do you remember that black- 
guard who used to sell Cards at the 
Sports ? That was Bob." 

" There's something all wrong there," 
cried Baxter, almost fiercely. " I don't 
blame Bob. How was he to know that 
was a screw ? " 

" My boy," said the Captain, " I'm glad 
to see you frightened." 

" Frightened ! Why, this might happen 
to any of us. How is a fellow to know he 
is not being taken in all the time ? " 



22 Baxter's Second Innings, 

" You mean if you were Bob you would 
just have done the same ? " 

" Certainly ; I would do it to-morrow." 

" No, you would not, Baxter." 

"Why?" 

" Because you are frightened. Bob 
was not frightened. A man who under- 
rates the strength of an enemy is pretty 
sure of a licking. When you are constant- 
ly on the watch for screws the game is half 
won." 

" But I don't see how he could have 
escaped this trap. It looked all right." 

" Screws always do," replied the Cap- 
tain. " That's where they differ from 
swifts. But where Bob went off the rails 
is plain. First, he disobeyed his parents ; 
second, he wanted to make money regard- 
less of consequences either to himself or 
others; third, he trifled with one of the 
biggest temptations in the world." 

" I hope that's all," said Baxter. 

" No, there is one thing more. I won't 
mention it unless you wish, Baxter ? " 

" What was it ? " 

"Well, he did not — he did not pray" 

" Perhaps he thought that was only for 
women." 

" The people who need it most are 
boys," said the Captain, seriously. " If 
Bob had done that he would not have 
' entered ' Temptation. Bob saw the gate 
open and walked straight in." 



3* °l 



CHAPTER V. 

WHY THE DEMON BOWLER WAS ALLOWED 
TO BOWL : AND HOW THE SCORING- 
SHEET WAS KEPT. 

" It's a good deal blacker than I 
thought," said Baxter. " That Bowler 
knows his business. But I should like 
to ask a question — if you've finished." 

" I'm only beginning," said the Captain, 
"but I think it's your turn. That bowl- 
ing would take another month to tell 
about. I've only mentioned three kinds, 
and there's heaps more — sneaks, for in- 
stance, and mixtures " 

" Mixtures ? " 

" Yes. When the Bowler alternates. 
He'll send in one ball slow, the next swift, 
and the third perhaps a wide, to throw you 
off your guard — dodgy, Baxter, isn't it ? " 

" It's downright low," cried Baxter. 
" That's just what my question was about. 
You won't be angry ? " 

" No," said the Captain, "go ahead." 

" Well," said Baxter, " I hope it's not 
swearing, or whatever you call it, but why 
do they let him play ? " 



24 Baxter's Second Innings. 

" They let him play," replied the Cap- 
tain, " to make a good game. Every boy 
who is worth his salt likes to play in a 
great match, and there cannot be a great 
match without him." 

" I thought it a disgrace to have any- 
thing to do with him." 

" No. It is an honour." 

" An honour ! " 

" Yes, the greatest honour of a boy's life. 
You have heard of the wise man who 
1 counted it joy.' " 

" Joy ! I count it uncommon hard lines. 
It's bad enough to call it an honour, but to 
call it joy — I find it most disgustingly 
miserable." 

" Stop," said the Captain, " we are at 
cross purposes. You are talking about 
Sin. I was not." 

" About what, then ? " 

" About Temptation!'' 

'■ But they're the same thing." 

" They're as different as night and day ! 
Temptation is no sin." 

" I don't see how that can be," said Bax- 
ter. " I never dreamt it was anything else. 
Are you quite sure ?" 

" Positive. You can see for yourself. 
Did Christ ever sin ? " 

" No." 

" Was He ever tempted ? ,? 

" Well, sometimes," 



3x\ 



The Scoring-Sheet. 25 

" No, not sometimes, akvays. A boy 
can be tempted every hour of the day, 
yet he need not sin. Keep that distinc- 
tion in mind, Baxter ; it will save you a 
lot of trouble. Don't think it's all up be- 
cause you are tempted. Temptation is 
only an invitation ; sin is when we accept 
it. The hang-dog sense of being a hope- 
lessly bad lot, and of concluding it's no 
use trying to be any better because we are 
so often tempted is what often turns the 
finest fellows into sneaks — fellows who, if 
they only knew that Temptation was no 
sin, would hold up their heads and play 
the man. The guilt of doing wrong, when 
one does do it, is quite enough to stagger 
under without feeling the Temptation 
criminal." 

" Even then," said Baxter, " I don't see 
where the honour comes in." 

" When I was at school," replied the 
Captain, " I was Secretary of the Cricket 
Club. Judge of my amazement when the 
post one morning brought a challenge 
from the All England Eleven. That was 
about the biggest day of my life. I sup- 
pose, though we did not know it then, 
they challenged every club in the King- 
dom, and though we modestly declined it, 
there was not a boy in the Eleven who 
did not feel an inch taller for the rest of 
the season. This challenge, Baxter, is 



26 Baxter s Second Innings. 

considerably more' honourable. Tempta- 
tion is the greatest Bowler in the world." 

" All the same, I wish I had not to play 
him," said Baxter. 

" Then you would never come to any- 
thing. You would be a poor weak noodle 
to the end of the chapter. A boy's only 
chance of coming to anything is when he 
is tempted. That's what makes a boy 
play up. How could you score if there 
were no bowling ? " 

This was certainly a conundrum, and 
the boy thought hard for a minute. 

"You write short-hand, Baxter?" re- 
sumed the Captain. " I heard you got 
the prize there ?" 

" Yes," said Baxter. " But I don't 
think I need take down what you've said. 
Anything that is dead straight like that 
goes into a fellow." 

" That's not what I mean," laughed the 
Captain. " But how did you win that 
prize ?" 

" Practice," said Baxter. " There's noth- 
ing in it. It's all practice." 

" And what made you such a good 
oar?" 

"Who told you I pulled ?" 

" The mantel-piece," said the Captain, 
smiling. " Do you think 1 don't know the 
Junior Eight Cup when I see it ? " 

"Well," blushed Baxter. "I suppose 



3^2> 



The Scoring-Sheet. 27 

it's the same thing — Practice. Everything 
seems practice." 

" I agree," said the Captain, " everything 
— down to tying your necktie. But did 
you never think what makes a good man ? 
No ? Well, it's the same thing that makes 
a boy a good oar, or a good shot, or a good 
anything; it's practice. A boy who never 
goes to the gymnasium or uses the dumb- 
bells gets no muscle in his arm. A boy 
who never pushes against Temptation gets 
no muscle in his character. Temptation is 
simply dumb-bells. It is really a splendid 
thing. The more practice a fellow gets the 
stronger he can become. Every ball the 
Bowler sends in is a chance to score." 

" I shouldn't care about scoring," said the 
boy, " if I could only keep up my wicket.'' 

" Baxter," said the Captain, "that's not 
Cricket. I see you have never read W. G. 
Grace. When you get hold of it, turn up 
to page 222 or somewhere thereabouts — I 
was reading it last night." 

"What does he say?" asked the boy. 

" He says, ' The duty of a batsman is to 
make runs'" 

" I wish I could," said Baxter. " That's 
just what I can't do. I'm bowled every 
time." 

" Oh, no, Baxter ! " 

"It's true," replied Baxter, "I'm not 
going to be a humbug to you. I'm a bigger 



28 Baxter s Second Innings, 

fool than Bob. That Castle that was taken 
with the single gun — that's me. Every day 
almost I'm bowled out. Nobody knows 
it. I'm the worst fellow ever breathed." 
And he turned away his head. I suppose 
he expected sympathy, but for some min- 
utes the Captain made no reply. Then he 
looked at the boy almost sternly. 

" Baxter, this will be found out." 

" What I've done ? " cried the boy. 

" Possibly, very likely ; but if you go on 
being bowled out it will certainly be 
known." 

"How?" 

" There are reporters at every match." 

" No, no ! Not in this case. It's a pri- 
vate pitch." 

" But I tell you it's all written down — 
all." 

"Where?" 

" On the scoring sheet." 

" What scoring-sheet ? " 

" Your scoring-sheet. Your character!" 

" Oh ! " groaned Baxter. 

" Yes," continued the Captain, almost 
mercilessly, " it's all there, every innings 
you play and every run you make and 
every ball you miss. There's not a mis- 
take on that sheet, nor an omission. 
Character cannot lie. Character cannot 
be taken in. Character hides nothing. It 
forgets nothing. 



3^' 



The Scoring-Sheet. 29 

" Centuries ago a soldier scribbled a bad 
word on a barrack- wall of a Roman city. 
A mile or two off slumbered a burning 
mountain. One day the mountain awoke, 
and the lava poured from its crater, and 
ashes rained upon the city and covered it 
up, and it was hidden and forgotten for 
seventeen hundred years. Then a peas- 
ant, digging a well in his garden, struck 
his shaft into the amphitheatre ; the ashes 
were dug away, and Pompeii was restored. 
As you walk through the silent streets to- 
day the guide takes you to that barrack 
and lets you see the writing on the wall. 
And as you read, you think of the long 
dead soldier's living sin. And you shud- 
der as you remember that no sin can ever 
die, that what one is is the record of what 
one has been." 

" Oh ! " said the boy, huskily, " this 
game — this game of life is terrible, terrible. 
I — I don't see how I can risk it." 

" Risk what ? " 

" Another innings. I can't face that 
bowling. And the past ? — it's a frightful 
handicap." 

" The past can be forgiven, Baxter," 
said the Captain, quietly. 

" Can it ? " said the boy. " Thank you 
for saying that much." Then he broke 
out again. " But is there the ghost of a 
chance ? Could I ever win ? I might 



30 Baxter s Second Innings. 

block for a bit perhaps, but I could never 
score." 

" Baxter," said the Captain, " I think 
you will win." 

" 7ou do ? " replied the boy. " Why ? " 

" First, because you are frightened ; 
second, because you are in earnest; third, 
because your Captain never lost a match." 

" But I can't always have you," sighed 
Baxter. 

" My boy, I'm not your Captain," an- 
swered his friend, taking him by the hand. 
" I could not help you much if I would. 
But you need a Captain, Baxter. You 
must have one. Do you understand ? " 

It was nearly ten minutes before Baxter 
spoke. Then he uncovered his face and 
pressed his visitor's hand. " Yes," he 
whispered, " I know. I was almost funk- 
ing it. But I think I'll go in." 



3-17 



CHAPTER VI. 

BAXTER'S SECOND INNINGS. 

Extract from the Athletic Column, Weekly 
Chronicle. 

" But the feature of the 

match was the play of young Baxter, who 
made such an unfortunate spill last Satur- 
day. It was clear that he meant to re- 
trieve himself in the Second Innings, for 
he was in such form — at least after the 
first over — that the Bowler could make 
nothing of him. He began by blocking 
every ball in a dogged sort of way, but 
soon started scoring, running up threes 
and fours in rapid succession. After an 
unusually brilliant drive for six, he seemed 
to become overconfident, and made a 
narrow escape by cutting a ball he ought 
to have blocked, but with this exception 
he did not offer a chance, and was well up 
the score-list before time was called for 
lunch. 

"After luncheon the Bowler changed to 
slows, and the batsman, who showed 
weakness here, had certainly a hard time 



11% 



32 Baxter's Second Innings. 

to keep his wicket. But eventually he 
mastered the situation, and from playing a 
merely defensive game began to knock the 
ball about right and left and was into 
three figures almost immediately. Bax- 
ter kept up this form to the close, and 
after one of the most careful and brilliant 
innings we have seen, carried his bat for 
the top score of the season. Our reporter, 
unfortunately, was not present afterwards 
in the Pavilion, but we understand the 
usual ceremony was duly performed, and 
the lion of the hour was presented with 
the traditional cricket-bat. The Captain, 
in making the presentation, congratulated 
the Batsman on the resolute stand he had 
made, and expressed the conviction that 
from what they had that day seen he was 
sure his future record would be one of con- 
tinued victory. Baxter's reply was in- 
audible to more than one or two, but he is 
said to have modestly attributed his suc- 
cess to a friend of the Captain's, who (so 
he said) ' had never lost a match. 5 " 



SEP 2 1904 



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